The Notepad - Archive

Before I start this series; I feel I should point out that while the characters and their mannerisms are indeed modelled off real people, the descriptions are not 100% accurate, mostly for comic effect or intent.

Things got interesting for the media executive when he was hit over the head with a frying pan. Well, they got interesting around him. He just lay there. Unconscious. The boys didn’t really pay too much attention to him, they were too busy worrying about their task at hand. The particular gentleman that had hit the flattened official had a nose that looked like a doorknob and a face that was too big for him. He was James, and he compensated for these facts by growing straight brown hair shoulder length and leaving it loose.
“Yeah, he’s been taken care of,” James whispered into an earpiece, “how are things at your end?”
“Well, they’re just fine, but you needn’t whisper”. The reply came through. James jumped as he looked up to see the person supposedly on the other end of his communications device standing in front of him. One of the other team members, Shivay has slightly shorter than James, had a short mop of black hair and stubble you could use to light a match.
“So how many others are left?” James asked.
“Well I took out my quota, and you did yours, so that just leaves Manan and Dylan - ”.
“So we killed them all”. It was Manan’s voice. James couldn’t yet see him but the mere sound of it set his teeth on edge.
“No, I killed them all, you polished the cutlery. You could’ve cooked the chicken”. Dylan. The team leader, and clearly frustrated with everyone’s inherent crapness. They rounded the bend so that James could see them properly. Manan was shorter than Shivay, and slightly chubbier. He played basketball for no apparent reason and was holding a frying pan the size of his head with a massive dent in the centre he had forgotten to lay down. Dylan was similar size to Manan and red with frustration.
“So … we did it?” Shivay asked.
“Yep,” said James, who was promptly hit over the head by Manan with his frying pan.
Manan giggled at the resulting sound, “hehehehehehe that sound’s always funny”, as James clutched his head in pain.

About a week later, the enormity of the task at hand hit them. Dylan especially, because he was the one doing all the paperwork. It was like all the clichés you heard of people in class group exercises doing none of the work and leaving it all for one member, except magnified because the team weren’t doing nothing, they were actively making Dylan’s job harder. As the days grew longer, or at least in his mind they did, and the pile of paper on the long desk grew larger and more pile-like, Dylan continued working on the pitch to station executives. If the pitch was wrong they’d be chucked off the air, and although from what Dylan could see this was not a bad thing, he still wanted to maintain control over the thing they had worked so hard for. Or he did anyway. He wrote another word on the document on his screen, then he heard a maniacal laugh from somewhere in the distance.
“What’ve you done now, Shivay?” he asked, not even looking forward to hearing the answer.
“You’ll see, you’ll see”, was the only reply. Dylan settled back to his work, not anxious for the big reveal of exactly what Shivay had been doing. But he’d asked for this in a way, setting Shivay up as the editor.
Some time later, James entered with some coffee. Didn’t offer it. Just sat in the office and drank his own. Rude. Then he got up and with minimal speaking, left. The pitch was nearly done. It would take some kind of a miracle to get a commission.
Manan laughed hysterically in the distance. “Shivay, that is brilliant”.
“What even has he done?” Dylan called from his office”.
“Wait for the broadcast. All I’ll say now is, Scam.”
“Scam?”
“S.C.A.M. Special Corporation for Authentic Media.”
“What.”
“You know – it’s funny.”
“Well, all right.”
Dylan carried on working. Then the pitch was finished and he submitted it. He knew they wouldn’t get a commission, but you never know …

The email came through at a quarter to five. Some minor screaming ensued for the next hour, (Well, okay, it never really stopped), and the team assembled in the executive’s office to discuss the filming strategy and how exactly they’d not be shitty at their jobs. Naturally Shivay was late; doing God knows what. Eventually however the whole team was present and seated, and the meeting could begin.
“So,” Dylan began, and was promptly cut off by Manan running out of the meeting. Stopping only quickly to look surprised at this sudden turn of events, he then continued.
“So. What exactly do you think the best bet would be in terms of filming? Should we film things as fast as we can and press on, stiff upper lip and hardened souls, preparing for the negative press? Or are we better to premeditate everything we do so it looks scripted and poorly acted, like it’ll look anyways so it may as well be professional?”
“Film it”. Shivay’s sarcastic reply cut through the contemplative silence like a knife and with minimum response from the team other than a frying pan to the head and giggle from Manan, the forum continued.
“I think we do one of each and follow up with whichever we muck up less”. James’ reply seemed to make sense. Hedging bets, it was called.
So they did that for a week, alternating the style of their shooting; live at the time of broadcast (6pm on TV8) or filmed throughout the day and broadcast from tape.
And they settled back for the reviews which trickled in at a pace roughly equivalent to the speed of a bullet (Okay maybe trickled wasn’t the right adjective). And it seemed that, at least for the time being, you could kill your way into the film industry and run a TV station reasonably successfully.

Two weeks later, they got a call. A major client. A pompous client. A rich client. He demanded three things; a news report filmed in one day, input in the process and minimum incompetence. And he promised just one; a truckload of cash.

Tuesday 13 May 2014: The News Part Two: Professional Incompetence

Apparently taking over a TV studio by entering through the back door and killing all the current professionals is an easy way to break in to the industry. But it isn’t an easy way to maintain the standing of the station. So the team had to pitch their idea back to the studio for a go-ahead. They got the aforementioned go-ahead, with minor amounts of anxiety, and then they could begin work properly …

The team had assembled in the production office. It seemed every time they did that, bad things were just around the corner. This time felt exactly the same as all the other ones before it. So, he was understandably panicked. The team sat in the office in silence for about a minute until James began to speak.
“Uh, guys, I got the camera yesterday.”
“Yeah, what did you get?” Dylan asked.
James holds up a reasonably light and cheap looking handicam.
Dylan looked disappointed. “Oh. Right. So. You want me to make sure this station runs properly using … that.”
“Yeah, that was what I thought, yes.”
“Did you think? That doesn’t seem evident”.
So they lapsed back into silence for the next five minutes, where Dylan turned back to the pressing business of Facebook, and James moved to look out the window over suburban Auckland (as the view of the centre city is remarkably expansive from a second floor window. Then a phone rang in the office and everyone tuned in to hear what the conversation was. But no-one answered the phone. After panicking and redialling the number, given that they had missed the call, Dylan sat back and listened and the others sat back and waited for Dylan to tell them what he’d sat back and heard.
He told them after hanging up the phone, “so that call there was a wealthy advertising executive asking us to film a commercial for him, or at least a promotional something to do with their product.”
“So what exactly is the corporate slogan for the station gonna be? What precisely do we actually do here?” James was confused now.
“Stuff. We do TV-station things until someone else charters us to do something else. Because how else are we gonna get money. Oh that’s the other thing. The ad guy promised us something like late 5 figures for the ad. This could make or break us.”
“So we wait to meet him and do our thing and hope like buggery we don’t screw anything up?”
“That seems too much to ask.”

The businessman requested to meet them in their office. There was no given reason for this. But nevertheless, the team dressed up for the occasion with Dylan and James in semi-formal attire, Shivay not in attendance and Manan, who came as a witch. The businessman entered and Manan, in the most faux-formal way he knew how, said; “hi. Welcome to 8 News. Would sir like a tea? Or a coffee? Or a seat? Or a stand? Or a pen? Or a pen-holder? Or a complimentary cupcake? Or a cupcake with the proper cost? Or a –”
“What Sir would like,” said Sir in a posh and nasal voice, “is for you to go a really long way away, really quickly”.
“Um, okay.” Manan left.
“Right,” said Sir. “Let’s start filming the report. I prepared the script in advance”.
The next day, they were ready to begin filming. Well, it was the first day of filming, and everyone was awake. Wide awake, the only kind of awake you get when you realise there’s a whole pile of things needing preparation that have not been prepared. Mostly because the team were not yet ready to film, and therefore running around like headless chickens. Eventually everything was gathered into the company vehicle in a mildly acceptable fashion, and the team could relocate to the location. Or that was the theory, until the car broke down. And then the AA had to be called. But eventually they arrived to the location for filming.
The camera setup took all of an hour, while Manan stood around and made funny faces for no good reason. When finally the team were ready for filming, Manan was handed a script and expected to memorise it in five minutes (big mistake). So what ended up happening was Dylan read out the report line by line to Manan, with the camera changing shot after each one. Apparently they make these things look good in editing. It was, however, at this point that Dylan’s job changed, as Sir had a request.
“Um, could you twats please just say the damn lines normally and without any of the ‘reading’ stuff?”
“I don’t actually know. Manan’s not that good, but normally we can ingenuitate our way out of situations.”
“Ingenuitate?”
“Yes. I made it up. So anyway, we’ll fix it up in editing.”
“But I want just one take”.
“Errrrrrr …”

“Eventually we managed it”. The team were back in the office and previewing the finished report on the monitor.
“After five botched takes, minor memory errors, a cross businessman and a mildly sprained wrist, yes.” Shivay’s sarcastic remark whilst processing the clip showed he was paying attention. He placed another cut in the timeline.
“Also we seem to have escaped with no real issues. I mean the clip actually looks quite good.”
“Play it back then,” Dylan said, as Shivay pressed the play button. The clip played through tinny laptop speakers.
The price of water has risen substantially since 1996, but this pond has been left untouched by water companies; mostly due to pollution, and the invention of whiskey in the later year. The world’s water shortages happened largely to other places, so basically this pond is going nowhere soon.
“Yes, that’s good.” Sir was at the door. He wore a hat over his normal formal attire. Taking the hat off, he sat down.
“So. I think I should explain.” He pulled out a badge with the company insignia on it, and continued, “I’m from the company, and they wanted me to appraise you. So basically that’s useless, that report there.”
He handed over a sealed envelope and left. Dylan opened up the envelope after the door was closed.
“He says that … they show promise and with careful supervision and less workload between each member, the station could be reasonably successful –”
“Ha. Does he even know us?”
“Well, he also says that we should hire a new member of staff”.

The interviewing process was well underway, and with Manan at its helm that means they were getting absolutely nowhere. Until a particular prospective employee walked …

Wednesday 21 May 2014: The News Part Three: The Game, The Interview, and Administrative Systems

When a team of four boys take over a TV studio by entering through the back door and killing all current employees, you’d expect things not to work out. But contravening the laws of both Physics and Sanity the team has prevailed, and after filming a minor report for someone posing as a client who was in actuality an executive for the Company. He recommended they employ more members. So they did.

The door clicked open. Manan was adjusting some “paperwork” (crude inappropriate drawings done during the most recent interview). The woman walked purposefully into the room and settled a briefcase on the floor. At the slight click, Manan looked up and saw a young woman of no more than 20 in a trouser suit standing near a briefcase. He didn’t know what to say.
“Uh, yes. Hi there. I hear the biscuits are extremely good this time of year”, he said gesturing to a packet open on the desk.
“Yes, I reckon they are. And at other times too,” she replied, taking one.
She sat down and Manan shuffled into what he thought looked a mixture of a more confident and businesslike position, and one such as to impress this girl, who for some inexplicable reason, he seemed to fancy. The look he received from the woman told him he looked constipated. She stuck out a hand, and Manan manoeuvred himself so as to be able to shake it.
“Gemma. Gemma Chan”, she said.
“Okay,” pausing for breath, he began “so what do you think you can bring to the company if we employ you?”
“Well I think I’ll liven the place up a bit”.
Manan said nothing, but was thinking you sure will. He noticed Dylan in the doorway, and waved him in. The door opened, and Dylan asked; “any good?”
“Very”, Manan said. Dylan was puzzled by this and left the room, allowing Manan to carry on the interview.
“Okay, Question two. What would you say if someone in the workplace asked you out?”
“No. That one’s easy. Unless they’re really attractive.”
“So … let’s say I ask you out?”
“No. Just no.”
“Ah.” Manan sat in awkward silence, until a loud “THERE. THAT’S HOW YOU PLAY THE GAME OF CARDS”, was heard from the next room, at which point Manan noticed Gemma nearly laughed. Her professional dignity kicked in and she didn’t but it was close. Manan looked down and placed a rick on the paper, at which point James burst through the door. He was out of breath.
“Dylan said to ask if you’d finished the interview?”
“Yeah, we’re done.” Gemma stood up to leave, and Manan stayed sitting, for reasons unknown (ahem). Dylan entered the office again, just as Gemma was leaving, and the door swung shut behind her.
“So you finished the interview, nice.”
“We found our employee,” Manan said, showing Dylan the tick.

Dylan sat in his office working out the administrative structure. It wasn’t the most entertaining job in the world to do, but someone had to do it and Manan had already messed around with the files by drawing skulls on the employment contracts and other sundry defacements on the scripts. He stared at the files for a minute, then heard Manan in the next room seemingly handling, with exactly the same intent as he had the file structure, a job interview. This very much needed stopping before it somehow escalated into costing the company time and money. So Dylan left his office, and moved to enter the next room.
Manan saw him almost straight away.
“Any good?” Dylan asked.
“Very,” Manan’s reply unsettled Dylan. So he promptly went as far away from the interview as was humanly possible, so he went back to his office, to sort out the filing system. James and Shivay were playing a board game in the next room, presumably waiting for a project to export or something.
“THERE. THAT’S HOW YOU PLAY THE GAME OF CARDS”. James’ cry distracted Dylan from his work. Well, it gave him an excuse to stop doing work while he went to tell them to shut up. So he did that, and not short of five minutes later found himself back at his desk. He needed to set up the office – as their frenzied takeover of the station had left little time for the petty annoyance that was file organisation. The filing cabinet was literally the whole office with small stacks of papers and random paper all over the room. But Dylan was confident that could wait for another day, and then after that it could wait then wait even more after that. So he went back into the interview room as the interview must surely have been nearly finished. James had beaten him to it, by about a second.
“Dylan asked if you had finished the interview”, James said, out of breath. I had not, Dylan thought but oh well.
“Yeah we’re done”, Gemma said as she exited the room and the door swung shut behind her. Manan stayed sitting and Dylan said, “So you finished the interview, nice.”
“We found our employee,” Manan said, showing Dylan the tick on his piece of paper. “What position was she applying for again?”
“Manager.”
“Oh ...” you could feel the embarrassment emanating from Manan as he covered his face. Dylan didn’t want to know what had happened during the interview. But he sort of did.

Exporting is a filmmakers’ nightmare. Shivay had known that at the start, but still found himself sat in the edit suite, exporting. But James was in the room too. So they played cards to pass the time. Last card, probably. Shivay had never had time for rules. He found that if there was a task that needed doing, you did that with almost all of your energy without regarding any attached rules. So he was more or less married to his work, and it didn’t help he’d once proposed to his computer using an SD card in a case to prove this point. Eventually menial card-game occupying conversation began.
“So what are you gonna do after this?” James asked.
“Well after the project finishes exporting I’ll - ”
“No. After this.”
“Well true, I mean this isn’t going to last forever is it?” Shivay pondered.
“Whatever gave you that idea? The fake shitty news report we did the other day? The fact we took over this station using frying pans to kill people?” James’ sarcasm had melted walls in the past.
“I don’t know why you say kill, they aren’t actually dead. If they were, we wouldn’t be here, would we?”
“True. Fact is after we took it over I didn’t really care what happened to them”
“Well they all ended up in the intensive care unit of a hospital. So someday they’ll all be back. And then we’ll be sent packing I suppose…” Shivay was lost in thought and James had to snap his fingers to bring Shivay’s focus back to the game. Actually he was watching Manan through the window looking into Dylan’s office which had a window looking into the interview room. Dylan had just gotten up to check on said interview. From what Shivay could see, Manan was interviewing an Asian girl. Well, making an idiot of himself. This’d be fun to watch. Dylan returned to his seat and Shivay returned to the game. Unfortunately, James had just won it.
“THERE. THAT’S HOW YOU PLAY THE GAME OF CARDS.” James’ yell was deafening. Dylan looked up, and came in to tell them to shut up. Then he said “what do you guys think Manan is trying to do?”
“Who, you mean. Who do you think Manan is trying to do? And I think it’s obvious. Gemma, or whatever her name is…” Shivay’s quick wit had never failed him before and it wasn’t about to.
“You know, she does look nice …” James began.
“Please don’t. Or if you do at least be orderly and civilised about it.”
“Orderly and Civilised. Have you forgotten who you’re talking to?”
Dylan left and returned to his office and at the exact second he did this, James sprung up and ran into the interview room.
“Dylan asked if you had finished the interview”, James said, out of breath. Dylan and Shivay followed shortly after, Dylan looking puzzled at James’ question.
“Yeah we’re done”, Gemma said as she exited the room and the door swung shut behind her. Manan stayed sitting and Dylan said, “So you finished the interview, nice.”
“We found our employee,” Manan said, showing Dylan the tick on his piece of paper. “What position was she applying for again?”
“Manager.”
“Oh ...” you could feel the embarrassment emanating from Manan as he covered his face. Dylan didn’t want to know what had happened during the interview. But he sort of did. By this point, she had well and truly left the room, so Manan and James both made eye contact and with complete and perfect unison yelled “dibs”.

James was tasked with filming a report in one day. Shivay remains sat at his computer, doing nothing. Manan still looks like a twat in front of Gemma. Gemma has settled nicely into the company. Dylan still monitors the whole company, and wonders whether he needs Gemma’s help.

Sunday 1 June 2014: The News Part Four: Jim'll Fix It

On the strict premise that hiring Gemma would not cost the station time or money in excess to that which it was required she work, Gemma was hired (although Manan had strict ideas to the contrary regarding this). James has proved a certain amount of nouse in the field, and Dylan delegates the administrative responsibility to Gemma, so that maybe, just maybe (although unlikely) it would be done properly.

James looked left and right in the crowded shopping square. He could see people literally everywhere around him and knew what he had to do. He saw what he was looking for, and bundling the expensive production equipment against his body, ran across the street to where he needed to go. He didn’t even bother a setup he just straight out asked the question, expecting an instant response;
“Can I have a two-scoop ice-cream, please?”

Dylan sat in the office, across a table from Gemma. She had been at the office for the first time the day before, so was acquainted and able to begin her work. He pulled out a phone and dialled James’ number.

James’ phone rang as he sat on a park bench eating his ice-cream, watching people walk past. His phone rang and he answered it. “What, I’m working,” he moaned.
“How the gods have smiled upon me, an employee who works,” Dylan’s sarcasm had split walls in the past. “Anyway, stop whatever it is you think you’re doing, and listen to me. You need to film a report in the afternoon, and it needs to be edited by this evening, so not only will you be really pressured today, but Shivay and Gemma will be regularly checking in with you to monitor your progress.”
“I don’t need monitoring, I can do fine on my own”.
“What, so when you accidentally put the red wire in the blue plug and shorted a camera costing us six days of time and two thousand dollars, that was coping, was it?”
“I’m older now, I can do this, I promise.”
“Okay, fine. But you’ll need a hell of a legal team if you mess this up. For one thing they’ll have to be able to prove I didn’t have reason to string you from the powerlines by your testicles.”
“Can I go now?”
“Sure. Don’t mess up.”

Dylan hung up the phone. Gemma sat back, smiling.
“He’ll mess up”.
“Quick, touch some wood or something before you jinx it”. They laughed for a minute and got back to work.
“So how does this outfit work?”
“You’ve heard most of it already – guy gets task, guy fucks up task, I solve problem, guy gets panfried. Rinse and repeat.”
“Oh … and I think the guy who interviewed me tried to ask me out three times in the interview.”
“Really?” the horror was evident in Dylan’s expression, “oh god.”
Dylan’s phone rang and he answered it.
“You know what I said about not messing up?” James’ voice said, “well, turns out I made that promise too early.”
“What have you done?”
“Put the red wire in the blue socket and shorted the camera, costing us two thousand dollars and six days of time.”
“James, for the absolute love of f –“

“So, he broke the camera”.
Gemma’s exasperated facepalm told Dylan everything he needed to know. “I mean, how can you expect this to be successful if you get staff as crap as that?”
“I don’t. It’ll fall flat on its face at some point in the next year or so. But I figure we may as well enjoy it while we can, because are we ever going to be able to do this again?”
“True, true. But you should get them trained or something. Improve competence in some way”.
James had paced around the square ten times, trailing bits of broken camera as he did this. He couldn’t easily fix the problem, not properly anyway. But he needed the footage. He walked past a man who looked like he’d come out worse off from a front-end collision with a hammer, and asked to borrow his phone. The man was a tourist, and this of course was misunderstood, costing James ten minutes as he took the tourist’s photo in front of one of the shops.

Shivay was assigned to check up on James every hour. He had taken this responsibility seriously, and Facebooked for the last two. When he finally remembered there was something he had meant to do, he sprung up from his chair and knocked it over causing a large crash and Dylan to knock on the door asking if everything was okay.
He dialled the number and James picked up.
“What.”
“Have you finished shooting yet?”
“No.”
“Okay. Why not?”
“Well, I would be able to if you weren’t pestering me about not being done shooting so how about you do us all a favour and go away to let me do my job, while you do yours and then maybe we’ll be able to sit around an edited product at some –”
“Okay, geez fine. I’ll leave you to it.” Shivay hung up, slightly baffled.

James put down the phone from Shivay. No sooner had he done this than the phone rang again. It was Manan this time.
“Hey, man. Just telling you to remember to get the establishing shot for the report. Without it, Dylan’s not gonna like it ….”
“I literally would be doing that right now, if you were not on the phone.”
“Okay, sweet. Also there’s a thing regarding Gem-“
James hung up before Manan could finish speaking. Then he took the Establishing shot for the report, realised something and called the studio. Gemma answered.
“Hi. Uh, I broke the camera. Any advice on what I should do?”
“Well, what have you done?”
“Okay, in chronological order; broken our camera, stolen a tourist’s phone and recorded the thing I need on that, then got stuck when realising I can’t retrieve it.”
“Okay. Here’s what you do. You pay attention to every word I say.” Gemma then innumerated how to solve the problem and hung up.

“Gaffer tape and string?!” Dylan was furious.
“But he needed to fix the camera to shoot the material!” Gemma fired back.
“So he can do that one report, but what about the future?”
“Obviously we get a new camera for that, I am not stupid.”
“Okay, fine. This one’s on you. Let’s see how good you are.”
Dylan then left the room.
Gemma looked at the wall for about a minute, then had an idea. She called James back.
“I’m on my way down. I’ve had an idea. Be there in five.”
Gemma arrived at the shopping square about ten minutes later. James was standing off to one side, tapping his watch.
“Five minutes?”
“You aren’t in a position to complain. So shut up and listen. We need the report for today and the one for next week. Except that the one for next week is done, and the one for today is not. So switch them, and who would notice?”
“Not Manan, that’s for sure.”
“He wouldn’t notice if his head was screwed on backwards. Anyway, then we can do the filming for this report later, once we replace the camera.”

Back in the office, Gemma looked at the broken camera and couldn’t really see anything wrong with it. She tapped it gently twice then turned it on. It turned on. Not broken. Stupid James.

They aired the reports in the order Gemma suggested. The unfinished one is needing edits, and is therefore Shivay’s responsibility. Only time will tell whether it will be finished before it is needed to be aired.

Monday 16 June 2014: The News Part Five: The Secret Life of an Editor

Shivay sat in the edit suite, all on his own. He liked it that way. There was less fuss. Just you and the computer. The downside was, of course, that if he messed up, he was at fault, and could not blame it on anyone else. The report James had finished filming on three different devices required a reasonable amount of editing, and Shivay was dismayed to find out that it also required frequent rendering. Because frequent rendering means wasted time. And wasted time means muck around.
Five hours later, and no work was done. Well, work had been done, and rendering had been done, but no actual editing had taken place. Dylan walked in to see Shivay with his head completely submerged in a laptop case.
“Just one moment, I’ll be right --- AAAAAAAAAH”. There was an electric zap sound and Shivay threw the laptop case off of his head where it crashed in to the floor.
“What even –“
“D-don’t ask.”
Dylan figured Shivay was doing something shocking (if you’ll pardon the pun). As often was the case with Shivay, he’d find this out later, as part of some grand scheme of things. So Dylan left him to it.
What Shivay had designed was a teleprompter.
And he wasn’t gonna stop there, after all, there was nothing else to do.

Teleprompter Version 1 – Shivay twiddled a wire then pressed the spacebar on his teleprompter unit’s case. A typing bar came up, and he entered the relevant data. Pressing the spacebar again, he heard a faint, robotic “Make Coffee” sound. Then he changed the text it spat out, and pressed the bar again. This, however, was where his plan came unstuck. As instead of repeating this new text like it had been programmed to, the machine warbled “makecoffeemakecoffeemakecoffeemakecoffeemakecoffeemakecoffeemakecoffeemakecoffee” and Shivay had to electrocute himself by unplugging the main wire in the device to turn it off. Result – failure. Dylan heard a faint noise from the edit suite, and walked down the hall to investigate it, but Shivay heard footsteps getting louder down the hall, so collected his laptop and dived out the window, meaning Manan arrived into the room to see a flapping curtain. Then he heard a smash and Shivay yell “Fuck”, and looked down.
“No fair, man,” was his only reply. Boredom=1, Shivay=0.
Not long after this and Shivay had returned to the edit suite. There was a second component to the report he was editing that required cutting together so he did that, stopping to add in an explosion sound effect midway through. Then he changed the script to the lead-in piece of the report from “And I’m Manan Sharma, for 8 News” to “And I’m a huge twat, for 8 news”. Manan was reading it and he wouldn’t question the script change. Then he played it all back, just to see how the recently re-edited bit sounded. And the explosion played back waaaaaay louder than expected, causing James to run in to the studio, thinking someone had … Shivay was unsure. Boredom=1, Shivay=1.
Shivay carried on mucking around, and set several further pranks in motion.
Then the render had finished, so Shivay compiled all the various bits and pieces he had done together into a somewhat cohesive product and hoped it would be good enough.
The time was 3:30, they were airing at 6:00. All was well.
But what if the prompter was done?
Shivay rushed around trying to get the various pieces of his (currently smashed) machine back together and working. He could do it. He could. He could.
He couldn’t. 5:30 and he was nowhere.
The report was due to be aired in 30 minutes.

First port of call was Gemma and (as Shivay expected) no amount of begging could get her to change the schedule. Then he physically manipulated the files himself as a last-ditch effort. But it was no use. He was running out of time.
So he came up with a plan. And set it in motion.
The record went as planned, and there were no immediate issues with any of the material that was broadcast. No immediate issues. There were, however, issues long after the recording.
Sitting in Dylan’s office, the team watched a playback of the report on the monitor above his desk.
“I want you guys to guess what problems I have with this,” Dylan said.
The report opens with a pan around a busy shopping square, to James seated on a bench. “It turns out, the radiation that phones give off is harmful and dangerous-” His phone rings, and James stops speaking, picks it up and as if to prove a point to the recording camera nearby, says; “James is not here right now. Please leave a message after the beep.” He pauses for several seconds and then yells “I SAID ‘BEEP’”, throwing his phone at the end of this exchange. He then carries on presenting a report, which is mostly unheard as repeated explosion sounds fill the audio track.
Shivay looks up suddenly, shocked, and somewhat proud. Dylan glares at him with an intensity that could etch glass.
Then the report cuts back to the studio, which Manan is sitting. “So if you want more on that story, subscribe to our website – no-one.cares.tv8.co.nz – and we’ll give you more details. But for now, I’m a huge twat for 8 news.
The report finishes.
“So,” Dylan says, “Who did that?”
Shivay raises his hand sheepishly.
“Well, we need to have a … little talk. Go and get Gemma, I need her to do something for me”.
Shivay goes to get Gemma, and Dylan says to her; “check your emails and see if anyone’s complained.
Gemma leaves to do this with a smirk.
“So, shall we go to the meeting room?”

Monday 16 June 2014: The News Part Six: The Job, The Date, and Damage Control

When you start an occupation, you always look over your shoulder. Because you’re nervous, because you’re being observed, because you actually like it. But then you settle in to the rhythm, and literally killing people to get to where you got to isn’t such a big thing anymore. Or it is a big thing, but it’s a big thing you’re prepared to not think about just now, because you have bigger fish to fry, because you’re busy doing the job you literally killed people to get. You become consumed by the job, and then the job becomes your life, and your family becomes people you know and the people you know become your family. Then you look back and realise what’s happened but you just don’t care anymore. Because you like it the way it is. Because you’re prepared to accept that. And then you find yourself sat in a room doing the job and the people you “killed” start to return … That’s when the job that had become so tedious in its execution reminds you why you “killed” people to get it. That’s when shit gets interesting …

Shivay and Dylan sat in a meeting room. The table was long and they sat at either ends. Dylan steepled his hands and leant over the table slightly. Businesslike. Professional. The two were wearing formal attire. After all, this was a serious occasion. Dylan had every confidence that Manan would have come dressed as a witch again.
“Mr Singh. Please state your full name for the record.”
“Shivay Singh. Why do I even have to do this?”
“You let a piece of footage highlighting our incompetence go to air and that isn’t good, although we aren’t – I concede – the most competent bunch, having that fact broadcast is not wise. So your job is … I dunno. I’m just not sure you have one.”
Gemma burst in, panting slightly.
“Uh, I’m sorry, but I had to interrupt. Look at the email,” she passed it over. Dylan read it then looked up. James and Manan were at the door.
James and Manan were in Dylan’s office in his absence, spinning around on the chairs.
“So, who has dibs over Gemma?”
“Well, no-one as yet.”
“So what’s next?”
Gemma walks into the room to get a file from one of the filing cabinets. Scowling at Manan as she leaves.
“Counting to ten, obviously.”
“Uh boys, come through here for a minute. I just received a real odd email.”
They go to have a look at the email
We’re coming to reclaim our station.
Gemma ran out of the room and into Dylan’s office. The boys followed afterwards.
“Uh, I’m sorry, but I had to interrupt. Look at the email,” Gemma passed it over to Dylan. Dylan read it then looked up. James and Manan were at the door.
Gemma sat in her office, on the computer, restructuring some files. She had found a small file structure on the company hard drive where Manan had just made files inside files with no actual content. Then her email beeped and she opened it. Then she made a snap decision and collected the rest of the team in the meeting room.
Five people with varying issues, all in one room. What could go wrong?

The interview room had a long table in it, and the team sat around this table in such a way that James and Manan were seated together, opposite Gemma who had her laptop out and headphones on so was not really paying attention to them, despite the fact that Manan had used the word “Gemma” very loudly at least twice and was doing his damnedest to be noticeable to her by pointing at her every time her name came up in discussion. Either she hadn’t noticed or was ignoring the stupidity. Manan was unsure either way.
He turned to James.
“We still need to count to ten”
“Count to ten? What is this?”
Shivay interrupted the meeting he was having with Dylan to stare at Manan for a prolonged and hugely uncomfortable length of time. Then he turned back around.
“So Shivay, you understand that I cannot let that footage air without some form of punishment.”
“Well you could always get Gemma to give me a smack. That’d work,” he said sarcastically.
“No. I already have two of the three village idiots that work here vying unsuccessfully for her affections. I don’t need a third.” Dylan’s flat and emotionless expression told Shivay he wouldn’t get the expected reaction.
“But seriously how do you intend to ‘punish’ me?”
“I have no idea. But I do think you need some time away from the station. That much I am certain of.”
“If it helps, I did buy a farm.”
“Yes, maybe go there, sort out your life, figure out you’re better than this, leave us and never come back.”
“I get the feeling you want me to leave.”
“SAVE YOURSELF. LEAVE WHILE YOU STILL CAN OR YOU NEEEEEEEVER WILLLLLLL.” Dylan dramatically grabbed Shivay’s arm as he said this in a highly exaggerated way. This remark was immediately followed by a loud “ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR-FIVE-SIX-SEVEN-EIGHT-NINE-TEN” from James and Manan at the same time, who had stood up for some reason. They then promptly sat back down looking disappointed. This illicted a reaction from Gemma, who removed her headphones and tutted at the boys.
“Guys, I don’t know if you realise but for some odd and unnamed reason I am actually trying to save this station from whoever sent the threatening email.”
“To be fair,” intercut Dylan, “it could have been anyone, and it could be a legit warning. We are absolutely horrible at our jobs.”
“True, but I wanna be sure. It could be the executives trying to warn us.”
“Well, true,” said James. Manan and him had stood up again, and were comparing heights. Gemma decided she didn’t want to know.
“What if those execs did decide to come back. That’d be fun.”
“Would it though? Does having to fight for our jobs in a company we took over by force sound fun to you?”
“Yes, it does.” Manan’s excited tone worried Gemma. So did the fact that the two boys, who were height-identical, sat down in a huff, both yelling “Damn”.
But there was no further time for wondering what exact drug the boys were on, because a postman came through the door and placed an envelope on the desk and left.

The white envelope sat in the middle of the interview room table. Gemma was the one brave enough to open it.
She read the contents, then leaned across to Manan and said, “we need to talk”.
James looked slightly surprised at this turn of events, and so did Manan. But not as surprised as Dylan, when he picked up the newspaper on the table and read something then gave a cry of shock.
“What?” Gemma asked, also slightly shellshocked.
“Shivay’s … in the obituaries … how?” He looked across at Shivay, who was about to reply in some way, but was never really given the chance.
Then the surprise meter burst as the meeting room door was flung open and in the harsh contrast between the bright light in the doorway and the dimmer light in the room, a shadow stood in the doorway, holding a frying pan. Shivay stood up to greet him, but the silhouette wasn’t impressed, instead raising the pan and smacking Shivay with it five times.
“This station is ours, and we’ll take it back.” The executive’s voice was loud in the silence of the room.

Sunday 6 July 2014: The News Part Seven: The Executive

TWO WEEKS LATER
The team crashed through the door. Not the stylish crash that you get in spy films. But an awkward tumble that ultimately meant a three-person pile up. They had been listening at the door, when it swung abruptly inwards, pulling them all with it, to a meeting between Dylan and the executives (complete with bandages still around their heads) negotiating exactly what would be done about the running of the station – or lack of. Dylan was annoyed, more annoyed than the team had ever seen him, and the executives were alternatingly patronising and condescending. So it wasn’t going well. And Dylan didn’t appreciate the sudden arrivals.
Gemma brushed herself off, getting up off the floor first. James was slower, as he appeared to have gotten an elbow in the eye, and Manan had a James stuck on top of him, so was off the floor last. The meeting, by this point, had completely grinded to a halt; the exec and Dylan were waiting for the team to explain itself.
No explanations came, but Gemma looked up at the executive, turned a weird shade of green and red, then ran from the room, and could be heard doing deep breathing in the hallway outside. Manan just left, without even bothering to try and explain, and ended up tripping over the doormat. James just looked at the two people seated, and said “Well … this is awkward.”
“So, in order,” Dylan said to the executive, with a race of disapproval, “the token female character, the boy who appears to ‘like’ her, and my assistant, who really isn’t any good at his job. There is one other member of the team, that is in hospital due to an unfortunate encounter with a frying pan.”
“See, the thing is,” the executive said, stopping to rub his head that was presumably itchy, “you need us. But you don’t want us”.
“I DOOOOOOO” yelled Gemma – she was still outside. This resulted in a mild look of confusion from the executive.
“Why is that?” he replied to Gemma. But James had already understood. His hypothesis was further proven to be true, when Manan walked back into the office and asked James for a word in the corridor.
“What is it?” James asked. He had a fair idea, he just wanted to be sure.
“Damn,” was Manan’s only reply.

Shivay’s hospital bed had been used for many things over the past few weeks. For one thing, it had a Shivay in it. Right now, Gemma was also perched on a table nearby. Or she was until the executive walked in, then she hyperventilated and fell off.
“Gemma Chan – competent and professional was the personnel file I was given,” said the exec. “Act like it.”
Gemma picked herself up and squared off with the exec, who was by now standing at the door. He had it half-open, and was not going to stay long for a chat.
“It isn’t my fault that I for some odd and unexplainable reason – ”
“Just don’t”. The executive left, the door swinging shut behind him.
The executive had left a tape on the table, and while Gemma recovered from the embarrassment of that last exchange, she walked over to pick it up.
It was marked “Reports Archive.”
Gemma sat down near Shivay’s bed and opened the DVD player, placing the disc inside. It began to play;
There is an opening shot of a glass door as James walks towards the camera. James doesn’t know the glass door is closed, and carries on walking, crashing straight into it. He staggers back, pulls the handless and the door slides open.
“Glass doors are an item of enormous personal risk to human society”, he says, holding up a piece of card with the words “An 8 News Public Service Announcement scrawled in nearly illegible writing on it.
“Honestly, the number of messages we’ll receive saying things like ‘See you next Fall’, or ‘Have a nice trip?’ is simply astronomical.” He pauses for a second. “Anyway, back to the point of this thing …”
Gemma stops the recording, because she hasn’t even been watching it, hiding her head in shame. She looks across at Shivay, who had been asleep when she entered. He was still sound asleep, and that’s all that mattered. If he’d seen that report, she’d never hear the end of it. She continued the recording, just out of curiosity.
Manan was mucking around with the camera. It was steadily on a tripod in the 8 News studio, or this could be inferred from the fact that it was steady footage, and was indeed in the 8 News studio.
“Hello, Shameless Claims,” Manan started with a voice you only hear from humans when they’re high on Helium but pretending not to be, “I tried to clean the wax out of my ears using a match stick wrapped in sandpaper … and now my head’s on fire. Can you help me?”
The recording jumps to a shot of the main lounge. Shivay presses a button on a remote and then a machine, presumably an early prototype of his teleprompter warbles ‘makecoffee makecoffee makecoffee makecoffee makecoffee makecoffee makecoffee makecoffee makecoffee makecoffee”. Then Shivay stops the device and the recording. It jumps to a presumably illicit recording of Dylan and the exec. The exec starts, “Here ate the Special Corporation for Authentic Media –”
Dylan cuts him off “even our organisation is called SCAM.
Then Shivay spoke, and Gemma stopped the recording out of shock.
“I’ve always liked that it was called SCAM”.

With Shivay out of hospital and recovering from his frying-pan based head wounds, the team met up in the meeting room to discuss progress.
“It looks as though it’s only a matter of time before they take the station from us” Dylan opened up the proceedings.
“So then we need to be actually professional this time,” James continued.
“Yes, we do. But could we keep that executive guy – what even is his name – around?” Gemma agreed, and looked over her shoulder in a way that can only be equated to the way a moth looks towards a flame.
“We reached an arrangement. He’ll check up on us every week or so for the next month. Then he’ll decide whether or not we can run this station or not.” Dylan failed to notice Gemma’s odd behaviour.
“We are perfectly capable of running this station ourselves”. James.
“What so when you got bored that time and made your computer propose to you using an SD card highlights your professionalism, does it?” Gemma.
“At least I didn’t go through a whole report acting like I’d been bitten by a feral dog”. James.
“Okay okay, guys calm down. We’re all useless. So we probably need all the help we can get”. Dylan tried to stop the argument and mediate. He didn’t need to.
“So then Steve should stay?” Gemma perked up.
“Who even is Steve?” Dylan was confused.
“The exec,” Gemma replied.
“Oh. And how’d you know his name.”
“Urhhmm ……”
“Anyway, guys, we can do this. We just need to stop mucking around and take this job seriously,” James finished the discussion.
Manan walked into the meeting room wearing a full-blown clown outfit.
“We appear to have a reasonable way to go.”

Tuesday 8 July 2014: The News Part Eight: Chemically Enhanced

The executive had left them alone for just over a week. Just enough time for things to start going horribly wrong …

James always arrived at work nice and early. He tended to deal with the important paperwork that had accumulated overnight before Dylan arrived an hour later. Because when Dylan arrived, there was no further time for clearing the backlog of paperwork, because of the general incompetence of everyone else. Basically James’ job finished at half past eight in the morning and the rest of the day was devoted to ensuring the station didn’t go completely to hell in a handcart. That was Dylan’s job description, and thus far between the two of them they had just about managed it. But today was different, James could tell.
Mostly because he felt like he was being watched. As he cycled into the office and locked his bike to a metal drainpipe on the driveway, he could feel the eyes on the back of his neck. Then he checked the postbox, because that was what he did when he arrived every morning. He had become so adept at this particular task he could do it without looking. He felt around in the box and was about 80% sure there was nothing, and due to the nature of the business they ran, that meant there was nothing. The letterbox was either deathly empty or exceedingly full. He felt around and felt nothing. But then he felt some more, and there was indeed a package present.
Grabbing the package, he was startled to find a clear plastic pocket filled with a white powder. He would keep this a secret. It would not affect the business. It could not affect the business.
Shivay arrived to work an hour later. James couldn’t keep his secret any longer, so he told him.
“Well,” said Shivay after consideration, “I have many Chemistry jokes, but they won’t get a good reaction”.
And they laughed it off, because that’s what their style is.
Then Gemma told them about the threatening emails. And they changed their mindset a bit.

The team assembled in the meeting room on the urgent insistence of Gemma.
She looked worried. Shivay was unsettled by this. Gemma had been reasonably dependable before now.
“So, guys …” Gemma began, her voice somewhat weak.
“The death threats?” Shivay finished. Had Gemma been less stressed, she might have questioned how he knew that. But she didn’t and instead she just nodded.
“Do you know what they might be about? Have you been ordering … ahem … stuff online again?”
“No,” Shivay looked down, ashamed.
“So what are we gonna do?” Manan asked.
“Typical. Every village has one idiot, but I’ve lucked out and got three. This is what’s going to happen. Dylan will go around the city with the package and the info we have about the death threats to try and track it back to its source. If we can’t do that by evening then we’ll set up an evening broadcast and try to clear this mess up before anyone actually dies.” Gemma had laid out the plan. All that remained was to fulfil it.
So Manan and James set up the studio, well, James set up the studio while Manan made silly faces at himself in the mirror in one of the dressing rooms. And Dylan toured a car around the main square of the city and embarrassed himself and the station in front of well-meaning and non-murderous individuals.
Dylan returned with this news thinking all was lost, but Gemma looked at the paper for a prolonged period of time and became convinced the whole thing was a weird kind of code. So Dylan trawled the streets again, figuring it out.
Just before six o’clock, Dylan returned to the station with no further information. This time, however, there was a white envelope addressed specifically to James.

Specificity was always more threatening and dangerous than generalness.
This remained the case with death threats. James was white as a sheet, which is an oddly appropriate simile as he was in the linen cupboard.
James hadn’t seen Shivay recently. But Manan was being ‘helpful’ again, so that could explain the absence.
Manan had been being ‘helpful’ all day, racing around as if he was high on something. James opened the linen cupboard door and saw the white package on the floor, but this time, unlike the first time he had seen it, it was empty. It was six o’clock. Time for humiliation on national TV. And it was Manan’s go at newreading too … that could not have come at a worse time.
Manan sat down at the newsdesk, then promptly stood back up again. He was still acting weird.
Then the cameras were rolling and Manan was speaking, fast.
“Hello and welcome to an unscheduled broadcast of 8 News. Just to let the relevant people know that we received an unmarked white package – ”
“Stop, Manan.” Dylan’s voice was firm. And Manan acted like a kid and took offense to that – nearly crying.
“You never let me do anything on my own …”
Then he seemed to flick a switch, as James said “look what happened the last time you were left on your own,” holding up the white plastic pocket. For some reason, Manan found this HILARIOUS.
He doubled over and legitimately could not control himself enough to continue. Then, from that position he leant forward and fell asleep.
James opened the white plastic posket and sniffed.
“Yes, that’s definitely sugar.”
Shivay had arrived by this time, and was standing off to one side smirking.
“Care to explain,” James was mock-cross.
“Well, okay, fine. I decided to have a bit of fun with you guys.”
“You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”
“Yeah, remember when I was editing that report that required heaps of rendering?”
“You put your name in the obituaries for something fun to do, didn’t you?”
“Pretty much. That’s what happens when I get bored”.
By this point the three telephone lines the station had were busy with callers, and Dylan was sure further investigations would ensue over the next few weeks.

A team of five all with issues and secrets. The best way forward? Put it all in a psychiatrist’s office and stand back.

Tuesday 15 July 2014: The News Part Nine: The Psychiatrist, The Body and All Other Issues

The whole team was sat in the reception of a psychiatrist. Gemma was trying to get as close to Steve (the Executive, as Dylan still called him) as possible, while James and Manan were both trying to get as close to Gemma as they could. Essentially, Dylan was standing off to one side watching the rest of the outfit huddle together uncomfortably on a two-seater couch. Steve looked thoroughly perplexed and worried by this, as he had not signed up to be ambushed by two guys and one girl. Well, he had, but only unofficially.
Dylan nodded to the receptionist, who failed to acknowledge his presence in the slightest.
Dylan then said “Hello?” Instead of a reply from the receptionist as he had thought, a computer in the far right corner of the room made a beeping noise and started whirring, as if this noise had woken it up.
“Please state the nature of your ailment.” The voice was robotic. Then again, it had come from a computer. So this was justified.
“We need to see the psychiatrist”, Dylan said loudly and clearly, like he was talking to a five year old. Third time lucky.
“Sending request”. The machine made a guttural growling sound then a disc flew out of a slot at about head height and smacked Manan on the head.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” one of the receptionists at the office had come out from behind her desk, seeing that the automated system was clearly failing to efficiently do its job. This must have happened a lot.
After Manan had been given a bag of ice and the receptionist had called for the psychiatrist, saying they had arrived, the team found themselves seated in a large and spacious office.
“Wow,” Manan was awestruck at the size of the room.
“Wow,” Shivay began, and Dylan thought it was for the same reason, but then he continued, “that machine was cool”.
The psychiatrist was sat at a large desk in the center of the room. He had made no movement at all to greet the team as they had entered, and continued to show little or no interest in them as they sat down.
“So,” he said at last, “in 200 words or less, can one of you please explain the circumstances for your visit”.
The executive volunteered himself, and began to tell the story.

The team were on the verge of turning 8 News into a fiasco. The executive had realised this long before he had been assigned to its supervision, but it never failed to amaze him how close to the line of total collapse the outfit was.
This was particularly obvious on this day, a Thursday, just before six o’clock, when the police knocked on the door.
They asked after a “James” who had been reported by a neighbour as having some drugs. James was dragged out in front of the cops by the ear, and forced to explain himself.
It had been some kind of misunderstanding.
Steve paused in his story, waiting for the psychiatrist to write the whole thing down, and looking across at the team, who (reading from right to left); looked angrily at their shoes cursing the stupidity of the whole thing (Dylan), stared longingly at him while he was talking (Gemma), tried and failed to stifle laughter letting out a sound that can only be described as like a dying whale sneezing (Shivay) and spinning on the office chair and scooting across the floor in the room (Manan). Then Steve continued with the story, choosing to ignore the sundry reactions of the team.
“So, long story short, after they’d made sure there were no fugitives in the building and we’d convinced them we were not in possession of a corpse, it became clear to us that there had been a case of mistaken identity, or simply garbled communications.”
“Ha, we know all about garbled communications,” Shivay muttered.
“That’s basically our day job,” Gemma murmured in reply. Then she overbalanced by leaning her head to far forward on her wrist and fell off her chair.
The psychiatrist had stopped looking at the team, as he had been while Steve was recounting the story, and was now writing on his pad. The whole room paused for a second, as if waiting for him to say something. He didn’t and Gemma began to panic, over-compensating for the lack of dialogue by over-talking.
“I mean, it’s not that we’re bad at our jobs –”
“We’re bad at our jobs. That doesn’t mean we don’t want the project to work,” James replied.
“And it would help if we could actually focus on the work rather than fawning over different members of the team,” Dylan snapped and Gemma looked visibly hurt at this. Then slightly puzzled, “I get you meant me and him,” she said, pointing at Steve, “but who else are you referring to?”
“Well, Manan and James are all over you,” he said. He looked across at the two aforementioned members of the team, who were hurriedly and, they thought, subtly playing a game of rock-paper-scissors. It ended in a draw and Manan leaped up, yelling “why must you always do this?”

“So,” said Gemma, in a wry and bemused way, “any other secrets that we need to pull out from the woodwork?”
“The drugs thing from last week? Who ended up with those?”
“I think Manan got rid of that – it was just sugar anyway, I set that up”
“Anything else?”
“I don’t think so. Oh, look at the time, it’s the end of our session.”
The psychiatrist looked up again.
“Would you like to rebook?”
“No, thanks – we’ll just be off,” Dylan said as the team stood up. On their way out, the psychiatrist called after them.
“So let me get this straight,” he said, adjusting his glasses, “you’re a news outfit run by teenagers who took over the station by force and have been accused of harbouring a fugitive and a dead body, as well as being in possession of drugs… ?”
“Yeah that’s about it.” Dylan ushered the rest of the team out the door, and closed it firmly behind him.
He re-opened it about thirty seconds later.
“How much will this cost?”
“Two hundred and fifty dollars,” the psychiatrist replied, and the door swung shut of its own accord, leaving Dylan in the hallway, his mouth hanging open with shock.

Saturday 9 August 2014: The News Part Ten: The Office Party

It was office party season again, but Gemma and Dylan weren’t feeling it as they sifted through the hand-delivered pile of complaints and the reviews for the year. In fact, they were positively depressed. This was not helped when Steve entered the room and started trying to flirt with Gemma. Gemma was confused and disappointed by this on the one hand, but at the same time almost tipping over her kneecaps at the prospect.
“So,” Steve said, “if it’s office party season, who will get the office award?”
“Two questions – one, do we have an office award -- and two, what employee reliably contributes positively to the firm? Answers are no, and none – in case you’re wondering”.
“That may well be, but you should consider it, because, and I don’t mean to be rude, but your outfit looks from the outside as if a six-year old has tried to press the record button on a camera and it’s fallen on the floor and smashed instead.”
“Well, that makes sense. That’s about Manan’s mental age and that has actually happened … once.”
Dylan pauses and coughs, “four times”.
Manan and James are standing by the door as this exchange is taking place. Manan’s mouth is hanging open. James grabs a tennis ball from nearby and putts it in the open crevasse.
“mhmhhmmmhhhhmmmmhmhhmhmhmmm” Manan said, then he took the ball out of his mouth, threw it at James’ head (who then lent over trying to remove the Manan-spit from his locks), and repeated “so is that what they really think?”
“Well, we’ll have to change their minds about us, won’t we?” said James enigmatically, before he swished away. But because he wasn’t wearing a long coat he looked like he was wafting a fart away as he left.
The meeting was called at lunchtime, where the announcement of a party was made official. Then the game was on.

The team gathered around the meeting room desk, but everyone was standing because everyone was on edge. Dylan began the meeting by pulling out a baseball cap and putting some pre-prepared names into it.
“Decoration duty,” he declared, dipping his hand into the hat, and pulling out James’ name.
“Catering,” he said, pulling out Manan’s name and then immediately regretting it. He had seen Manan’s packed lunches, and didn’t fancy leaving Manan with total control of a kitchen.
“Also on decorations,” he pulled out Gemma’s name – prompting a relieved sigh from James and Manan glaring at Dylan with a look that could etch glass.
“And … last and least, assisting with the catering,” he reached into the hat and scrabbled around, knowing there was only one name in the hat but creating an atmosphere of suspense nevertheless. He pulled out Shivay’s name.
“So this is the deal,” he said, “you guys do the things you’re supposed to do and I score you for them. Winning team plays paper-scissors-rock for the office award. You have two hours. Go!”
And so it began. Manan and Shivay went to the supermarket, entirely failed to get the things they had planned and left after a yelling match with a self-service checkout.
Gemma and James started off significantly better – getting all the streamers and balloons within half an hour, but it was at the ‘hanging these up’ stage that they fell down, so that when Shivay and Manan arrived back from the supermarket, they were still going. So Shivay and Manan went to the kitchen
Midway through the face-off (which had not started out that way), the first deal was struck. Shivay and Manan were in the kitchen trying to separate eggs (which Manan had slightly misinterpreted and had individually laid them all out), that Shivay left to go to the bathroom. Or that’s what he told Manan. He actually went into the office, where Gemma and Shivay were hanging streamers, and made two deals – one with each. With Gemma he agreed that if they won, he would attempt to get Manan and James to stop doing whatever it was they were doing (with regards to the Gemma situation) and with James he agreed that if they were to win he would give him $100. James’ deal worked both ways, Gemma’s did not – in return for winning Shivay asked nothing of her. Then he went back to the kitchen, where Manan was still working. They had half an hour left.
“So I went to see Dylan.”
“About what?”
“Nevermind.”
James and Gemma worked in silence. It wasn’t a companionable silence. It was an awkward silence. They had finished hanging the streamers and moved on to balloons, with half an hour left.
Then Gemma left to ‘go to the bathroom’, and no sooner had she done this than Dylan came around to check what was going on. Naturally, James made a deal then -- $100 if he were to win. Dylan laughed this off, and James realised Gemma was probably making deals with the other side (well, Manan because Shivay had already seen them).
And so it carried on like this for the remainder of the time until everyone had deals with everyone, but no-one was completely sure with whom their competition had made deals, and what the deals were.

The actual party started slowly. Steve, for some reason, couldn’t make it, which disappointed Gemma. While this made James and Manan both rather happy, the team just ended up sat around a dinner table in silence looking at the whatever-it-was Manan had made and hoping it was edible. This carried on for a decent twenty minutes, until Dylan stood up and said, “so I’ve decided on the winner. But first I’ll give you a rundown of how each team scored points; it started even, as these things probably should, and with James and Gemma arriving with supplies first, this gave them an early one-point lead. However, while Manan and Shivay were later in arriving, they managed to work more consistently, evening up the scores. Finally, and this is the deciding point, the finished product; the decorating is simple but it works nevertheless, and it is certainly better than whatever this is,” he stopped to prod an unidentified lump of meat as if to prove a point.
“So,” he continued, “Gemma and James win.”
Then he dived back because the whole team became a flurry of action as it became apparent that James was owed $200, by Dylan and Shivay (at $100 each), James had dibs at Gemma, Shivay was now hellbent on ensuring James didn’t have dibs at Gemma, and Gemma didn’t have to go on a date with Manan, which greatly relieved her.
Dylan surveyed the mayhem with a perplexed and slightly disappointed expression.

James and Gemma appeared to have hit it off at the party. The firm was failing. Dylan was unsure about everyone’s jobs. Shivay was missing in action, again. But Manan had solutions to all four problems, or at least he thought he did. Only time would tell …

Sunday 10 August 2014: The News Part Eleven: Resignation Stations

“So, basically it’s been two months and there’s been no noticeable improvement in the running or performance of the station. I mean, come on guys – do you want this to work or not? Normally if you did, there’d have been some kind of improvement, but here we all still are, like a cat waiting for a door to open.”
“But we are waiting for a door to open,” Shivay calmly interjected. This got confused looks from everyone else, and Shivay was required to explain.
“I mean, think about it. No-one thinks we can, so people need to let us do our job and then those expectations will change over time.”
“Except that we’ve been allowed to operate for the last four months and nothing’s really changed. So while I do see your point, I don’t actually agree with it”, Dylan interjected.
Steve continued, “which brings me to my next point. Look at the team; Manan who has the mental capacity of a brick wall, Shivay who casually screws up reports because he gets bored, James who wants the station to be a success but can’t organise the team, Gemma who could actually organise the team if she wasn’t so busy flirting with me – nice shoes by the way,” he paused while Gemma went red and hyperventilated, then continued, “and Dylan, who is trying to get everything to work but no-one will listen. That’s this team the way I see it.”
“I’m out,” said James, to everyone’s immediate shock. “Think about it, the team is failing and I have time that I could be using way better elsewhere. So yeah … I think I’m done here.”
He gets up and leaves, Manan following not long after.
Dylan stopped Manan at the door; “what are you doing?”
“Same as him – I don’t like doing work”.
Dylan sighed as the team fell apart and Gemma inched closer to Steve, who inched away from her.
“So,” he said as Manan slammed the door too hard and it fell off its hinges, “breaking news, just in.”

“And that’s all for tonight folks. Goodbye.”
The pause following this resulted in complete silence in the studio aside from the steady click of the camera and beep of the red light on the door saying ‘On Air’. Gemma looked down at the script she was reading from and flipped through pages back to the front of the document. She continued; “Oh shit, sorry. Hello and welcome to 8 News. Lots of important stuff happened that we’ve decided we won’t show you, so here’s something we prepared earlier.”
She then pulled a laptop out from under the newsroom desk and plugged in some wires.
“I have no idea what I’m doing. I’ve never been here before …”
Then a clip took over the monitor and Gemma relaxed because she was no longer live.
“That was … horrible.”
“Yes, it was. Try next time to … err … get it right?” Dylan was attempting constructive feedback and failing at it.
The station had been like this for the past week, since James and Manan’s departure. Steve had been around to offer encouragement to the team before broadcasts, read scripts and just generally flirt with Gemma. Shivay had, for reasons as yet unknown, disappeared. The station was failing worse than it had been previously – if that were even possible.
“I don’t even think this is working. Maybe its best we just pack this up?” Gemma was confused and tired.
“Do you mean you’re done too?” Dylan was defeated also – even he had considered stopping the station then after a carefully worded meeting with Steve (“Get your head out of your fucking arse”) he had decided to stick with it.
“Yeah, I’m done,” Gemma said, as she switched off the newsroom lights, leaving Dylan in the dark as the door shut behind her. Then Dylan cycled through the clips they had to use and found one of Manan holding up a paper clip and saying to the camera with a straight face “Have a look at this clip”.
Dylan sighed. Tomorrow he would try to re-assemble the team.

Manan woke up early on Monday morning. This was not normal. He was woken up by his doorbell, and Dylan was at the door.
“Typical”, Manan said, as he opened the door.
“So, would you please come back to the station?”
“Why would I? Life’s good here …” Manan said this gesturing to the room immediately behind him. Pizza boxes and Xbox controllers littered the floor.
“I mean, yeah. But think about it like this – Gemma won’t want to date you if you smell like an elephant’s rear end”.
Somehow, miraculously Manan had already fully dressed in business attire by the finish of the sentence.
“So, let’s go”.
At the same time, Steve was visiting Gemma, and adopting a slightly different tactic.
“Hi, Gemma. We need you to come back.”
“Look, I do want to work there, but that’s just it. I wanna work there, not have to sort out the problems of my workmates.”
“So there won’t be any issues.”
“Well, okay you have one week to prove it.”
James opened the door to see Dylan and Manan standing on his porch.
“What?” he asked, half asleep.
“We need you to come back.”
“Will Shivay be there? Shivay’s cool, I’ll only go back if he is …”
“Actually that’s our next stop, so I’m assuming you’re in?”
The three boys made their way to Shivay’s house and managed to convince him to come back to the station with little negotiating effort. That was after they’d got him out of bed, which required an insubordinate amount of physical effort. Then the team was back together.

The reassembled team was on a quiet road filming a public service announcement. They had been assured they would not be disturbed. While Gemma set up the camera and lighting, Dylan and Manan were talking;
“So James and Gemma have hit it off of late, especially after leaving us,” Dylan observed wryly, and Manan grimaced.
“The station’s still failing, and are we still worried about everyone’s jobs?” Manan said as if he had the answer.
“Do you have a solution?”
“Yes. And Shivay’s … not here. I can solve that too.”
“How?” Dylan asked, but was interrupted by Gemma saying they were ready.
Dylan assumed his position behind the camera, while James stood in front of the camera and Manan held the script up for James. Then James began the report.
It finished with little or no incident.
Manan looked up after James had finished the report and said; “I’m not doing that again”
“Just because you wanna impress Gemma, eh?”
“What do you care about me trying to impress her; you’re equally as guilty.”
Gemma was confused, “what, so you both …”
James couldn’t think of a viable response. “Uh …”. He didn’t see the car coming from behind and no-one else was paying attention, due to these latest remarks.
He felt it, though.

Sunday 17 August 2014: The News Part Twelve: Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction

Gemma wasn’t sure what to do. That was the sum total of the situation. Manan was frozen in shock and Gemma knew she needed to help but was unsure as to what she actually needed to do. In the end, she settled for calling an ambulance. By this time, Manan had regained focus and moved James out of the middle of the road.
“So what, we just wait?”
“Well, you might but I still think we can try to help him,” Gemma said as she hung up the phone.
“How?”
“I am so gonna regret this,” Gemma muttered as she closed in on the unconscious body of James, and began to perform CPR.
“Hey! What are you doing?” Manan protested.
“You want him alive, don’t you?” Gemma replied while coming up for air – which made her journey slightly pointless.
“Well yes, but there’s no need for that”.
Gemma was pissed off now, as she continued applying pressure to James’ heart. “You want to help him in some other as-yet-unclear way then do by all means get up off your arse and actually do something for a change-” she gulped and continued CPR.
“I – I never realised you had such a low –” Manan was hurt by Gemma’s remarks and Shivay stepped in to the conversation.
“Don’t be like that man, there’s no time.” He waved at the ambulance which had just come around a corner of the road, which then pulled over and medics piled out, with a stretcher. Gemma was forced away from the body as he was piled on to a stretcher.
The ambulance ride was short, but uncomfortable.
At the hospital, James – who was by doctor’s accounts, simply unconscious, was taken into a ward to rest. Then something went wrong somehow, Gemma was never quite sure, and James needed to be hooked up to a life support system. Perhaps his heart gave up or something.
The doctors stabilised James and then relayed this information to the team waiting in the hallway.
It seemed James was now in a coma, and only time would tell whether or not he would wake up.

James opened his eyes.
He was in the production ‘office’, lying in a hospital bed and taking up the majority of the space in the room, except for the desk. Slowly getting out of bed, he looked around, somewhat confused.
“Either I’m at work, or Heaven looks like a crappy news station”.
“You’re at work”, Dylan’s voice could be heard – James looked around and saw him at the doorway.
“How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough. And you might want to put something on over that hospital gown; you look like that woman from Kiss Me Deadly”.
James complied, putting a jacket over the top of the gown.
“Where even were you just now?” he asked Dylan.
“Steve’s funeral. He was tragically put in a woodchipper about a week ago. All that was left … was a shoe.”
“Was it like the party you planned years ago?”
“Yeah; only me there. Anyway we have work to do.”
“What work, exactly?” James asked his boss.
“Um, I don’t know – you’ll find something.”
James looked over at his desk where papers had mysteriously appeared as if by magic.
“Did you -?”
“What, put those there? Nah …”
Gemma walked into the office on the phone to a client; “Yeah, I’m the boss now. What do you mean ‘what do you mean?’ We got him out of here. A strange combination of a wrongly sized ruler, a run-in with a drunk traffic cop and a fall from a third-floor window and he went and had a heart attack. Something about stress, he said. But we run much better now …” Manan follows her in with a mischievous look on his face

“Breaking News!” He cries and then smashes a vase on the floor, “Broken News!”
Gemma just looks at him like he’s insane for a minute, then rushes over to James and kisses him.
“Are you OK?”
“Uh – wha – what the hall was that?” James recovered from the shock of both preceding events.
Manan replied, “Well we’ve just sent out the midday broadcast live and planned the evening one, so we were having a break”.
“Okay, that’s one of two,” said James, still mystified.
Shivay appeared at the door and said “James, basically what’s happened is the team is working properly for once, the girl of your dreams is yours and your competition for her is dead”.
“Okay, cool. Wait how did you get there?”
“Magic”
“Ohhhhhhhh. This is all a dream isn’t it?”
“Whatever makes you say that, you could just be very lucky”.
“Well, the work I had to do appeared as if by magic and as you say these things keep happening and that’s just two of the three reasons I think this is a dream.”
“What’s the third?”
“You’re dressed like a nineteen-seventies magician complete with top hat, cane and twirly moustache.”
“Ah yes. That.” Shivay looked down at his outfit. “So. Yes this is all a dream. You got hit by a car and then some complication of some sort happened and now you’re in a coma. Doctor’s aren’t sure if you’ll …”
“Oh. Well.” James said, looking around the room at the team.
“So. Let’s get working.”

“Don’t think I’m happy about this,” James told Manan.
“As one door opens, another one –” Manan began to reply, while James slammed the office door in his face. This was just one of the meetings he’d had with Manan in the last however-long-he’d-been-in-the-dream. Shivay had shown up intermittently in different attire, the magician outfit, a cat costume, dressed as a crucifix – and those were just the memorable ones. By and large, though, the team was working for the first time ever.
James and Dylan had engineered the most successful week of stories that the Special Corporation for Authenic Media (SCAM for short) had ever done, helped by Shivay chipping in meaningfully from the sidelines as opposed to his normal chipping in counter-productively from the sidelines. Manan had managed to actually focus and not be too much of an idiot over the week as well; which further strengthened the team’s position in the market they were trying to work in.
Then they won the award for Excellence in Broadcasting and were noticed by the wider community. James, of course, thrived because of these, receiving promotions to basically the same job as Dylan and being in control of half of the operations. And then there was Gemma all over him too. James couldn’t be happier …
The team stayed beside James’ bed for the week. Well, one at a time they left to keep the station running – but Manan had been unable to get through his broadcast without crying and Gemma had minimal knowledge of the systems the team operated. Ultimately this meant that the station’s situation became worse than it had ever been and the inevitable cancellation notice drew ever nearer.

The station was a success. James had ascended the ranks and was now in control of well over a hundred employees – news reporters and cameramen, editors, even sub-companies producing other shows for the network. James had been going out with Gemma for at least the past year (he couldn’t tell – the dream time was unreliable).
“Yeah, just make sure it all works then stop there, and I’m sure your scripts will come in before six o’clock tonight for broadcast. Hold up, I’ve got a call coming in, it’ll be about your scripts. I’ll call you back.” He presses a button on the phone and another call begins. “Hi, how’re you going with the scripts? Yeah, I know it’s called Late Breaking News, but that doesn’t give you an excuse”. He hung up the call, and redialled his earlier number.
“No, I’m sorry, but your script won’t be ready before Christmas. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause-”
He pauses as Shivay walks around the corner, “please hold”. Playing his iPod into the phone speaker, he sets the two devices down and moved off to talk to Shivay. He could only assume that the person on the other end of the phone was extremely frustrated and getting more anxious and annoyed by the second.
“So, what’s up?”
“Not you – you’ve been in a coma for the last two weeks”.
“Low blow, man”
“Somewhat, you’ve been at about waist height – not moving much. That happens when you’re immobile in bed.”
“You came here for something – what?”
“Easy. It’s time for you to come back”.
“Back?”
“Yeah, to reality.”
“But I like it here”
“This is all in your head. If you wake up, you could make this reality”.
“Well I suppose I wouldn’t have to talk to you all day”
“That settles it,” Shivay flicked a lever which had somehow appeared out of nowhere, and James was jerked upwards and into a white space.
He opened his eyes in a hospital ward, with the team surrounding him. As touched as he was by this, he had ideas he needed to share and wasted no time waking up Shivay and Manan.
They laughed at him. Didn’t even remotely take his plans for saving the station seriously.
Gemma was asleep; he’d tell her later – she’d listen.
Then a hospital worker burst through the door with Steve in tow.
“Excuse me, this gentleman wanted to see you”, he said, and Steve began to speak.
“Guys because of the inactivity over the past two weeks, the executives have decided to shut you down. You have until the end of the week to somehow, although I don’t know how you can do it, reverse the ruling. They gave me a letter”.
He placed the letter on the table.

Wednesday 20 August 2014: The News Part Thirteen: And Now It's Six o'Clock

The report opened on to a field outside the Beehive. Manan was standing, holding a large vox-pop mike and using it to speak into.
“So, in the run-up to the election it seems most parties have made mistakes. Well, I say run-up. I mean … okay it’s like at school how you do the long-jump and then about two seconds before the actual jump you look at the bar and think ‘wow, that’ll hurt’ and sort of decide not to jump, but then you carry on because you haven’t fully told your legs to stop and you end up smacking your face on the very bar you said would hurt; yeah, instead of a run-up, it’s a little like that.” He paused, proud with his extended metaphor.
“Get on with it”, Dylan tutted from the sidelines, and Manan straightened up.
We decided we’d do a decent-length article every day to educate the public, or at least the public that watch us here at the Special Corporation for Authentic Media –”
James cut in from the side line; “All five of them”.
Steve paused the clip. The team were all sitting in the production office.
“So, up to there, it’s sort of okay. I mean there are professionalism errors and whatnot, but nothing I haven’t convinced the executives isn’t an issue in the past. Then we continue …”
He pressed play again, and the clip continued.
Manan had again gone off-topic.
“I mean there was a time where we ran out of things to do every day, so we ran stories like ‘Breakfast as normal’ in the morning just for something to broadcast. And then we got complaints from the people whose breakfasts were not, in fact, normal – like this one guy who’d woken up to find a man in a balaclava in his kitchen with a sharp knife dicing all his Bran flakes.”
“Cereal killer”, muttered Shivay, off-frame but it could still be heard at a reasonable volume.
“Anyway,” said Manan, hiding a smile, “we’re going to set off fireworks to start off this daily thing we’re doing”.
Steve stopped the clip.
“Okay,” he said, “this is where we have problems. Because not only do we not have the budget for said fireworks, but you guys are irresponsible at the best of times (and this is clearly not the best of times), but also, you basically caught yourselves setting fire to the houses of parliament on film. So I think it’ll come with little surprise that I am forced to terminate your operations here. The executives were wary of you anyway, what with how you guys handled the station during James’, erm, absence. But this is –”
“The final match?” Manan chipped in, and Steve leant over and hit him. Hard.

The team sat there in silence. It was finally over. Then James says, “I think I know how to fix this.”
“Yeah, sure you do, what are you thinking – knock them out with frying pans again? This is serious this time. I really don’t think we can.”
“No, I have a plan,” James was already moving. “Manan, if you get the executives on the phone and say nothing else to them at all, Steve – I need you to go as far away from Gemma as possible so she can actually work properly. Shivay, I need you to set up the greenscreen and camera and make sure it all works, and Gemma you should field incoming calls from people with complaints.”
Gemma begins to protest this and James cuts her off, “I know, I know, you don’t like dealing with people. But you have to do this.”
“What will Dylan and you be doing?”
“We’ll be as far away from the rest of you as possible, trying to make a sustainable plan for the future.”
Shivay was in the studio, mucking around with the greenscreen and camera, and using After Effects to edit the material. “And the final story of tonight; a group of teenage boys mysteriously murdered all employees at the local media center, and police want to know – hang on. Umm, [shuffles his papers] that’s all for tonight on 8 News.”
He pauses and a thought occurs to him. “Oh, but before we go, entering our ‘Who killed the employees of TV 8’ competition is really simple. All you have to do is email a four-digit code to the head of BCB 8 Drama, who will then forward a copy of the code to me, and simultaneously send you a second entry form which can be used to get priority so we may place you in the draw. What’s the big prize? Who knows?” He pauses again to tap his nose knowingly. “You’ll have to wait and see.” Shuffling his papers, he closes off, “that’s all for tonight. Goodbye.”
He stops.
“Yeah, all works.”
Manan had the executives on the phone, and Gemma was bored because the other phone wasn’t ringing. So he decided to go for broke – it wasn’t like he’d ever see her again after this if she said no.
He spoke hurriedly, nervous. “I umm... heard you umm... like coffee. I was umm... wondering if we could umm... go and get some?”
“Sorry, What?” Gemma had barely understood any of this.
“Forget it. Why would I even bother doing this?”
Manan walks away, with his head in his hands. Gemma calls after him, and he turns back around.
“Manan.”
“What?”
“You did just ask me out, right?”
“And look how that turned out for you...”
“I’ll let you know.”
James and Dylan had planned out the future – James had told Dylan what had happened in the coma. James was just getting a celebratory coffee when he ran into Steve.
“So, what’s up?” James was wary of Steve due to the whole Gemma thing.
“Not much,” James didn’t normally talk to Steve, so he was also wary of James.
“Look, were you thinking of asking Gemma out before this whole thing goes tits up?”
“Yeah I thought I would. You?”
“Probably. Well okay, that’s three of us, because Manan probably will as well.”
“So, let the best man win.”
“Or all men lose, that is a possibility,” James replied.
“I might’ve already said something to her – I must have. She’s all over me.”
“Will, it is possible. You’d remember something like that though?”
“I definitely said something to her … I may not have opened my mouth, used words, or anything but I definitely said it.”
James was confused by this.
In the two hours that followed, the attack plan of the team came together nicely, and a pitch was put forward to the executives. Gemma was asked out thrice by James, Manan, and Steve – all of whom she told she would “let them know”.
Then the team received a reply from the executives that ran something along the lines of “No. Go away.” After all of this and just before packing up their stuff, the team all found themselves in the office.
“So, can we play the Game?” Manan was bored as happened if he sat still for more than a minute.
“No.” James cut over Manan straight away.
“No?”
“Yes, no.”
“Yes, No?”
No – yes.”
“Yes?”
“No.”
“I’m so confused,” Manan said, and the team relapsed into silence. During this exchange, Gemma had walked out of the room and talked to Dylan.
“All three of the other guys asked me out.”
“Oh. Not Shivay, I presume. And what are you thinking of doing?”
“I don’t know – I need your help”
“Honestly, I think you should do what you think. Because look at us, normally there’s only one village idiot – we ended up with three.”
“So how should I let them know?”
The game in the office had stopped and the boys looked up to see Gemma and Dylan talking. Craning to hear what was being said, the silence became even more silent as Gemma got her phone out and dialled a number. Then all three of the phones went off.

Six Weeks Later
The station had long since closed and the team had decided to meet up for dinner. Naturally, the team placed their orders and the resulting wait for the actual food was a better cause for discussion than anything else that had happened to the team in the interlude. At the very least, it got the conversation going, and the team each went around the table (clockwise), telling their story.
Gemma and the executive had been ‘going strong’ since the disbandment of the news station. She still can’t watch old The News archival footage or any other news program for a great length of time without getting flashbacks. She prefers to watch topical comedy every Friday to keep up with the week’s news. She had therefore rung Steve to accept his offer.
Manan and James had a heated argument on the last day of operation of the news station (on the doorstep on the way out), involving Gemma and stopped talking due to the various jealousies and superiority complexes present. Naturally this means Manan’s main advisor and confidant is James, and vice versa. Their phone calls had been for ‘missold health insurance’ for James and ‘a reminder to call the vet’ for Manan.
In the six-week interlude, James had applied for, been accepted into and started attending classes at Auckland University, where he found very quickly and to his great dismay that he shared all his classes with Manan. As is the law of nature surrounding things like this they sat next to each other in a slightly bitter stone-cold and rather awkward silence in all of these such classes.
Dylan became a rather successful investment banker who, much like Gemma, ends up in the foetal position if he watches News programs or even remembers the running of the news station. Over the first year of his career he amassed a somewhat large wealth, for investment somewhere at some point in the future …
But, for now forgetting the fact they had the rest of their lives ahead of them (as well as that they would probably never speak to each other again after this meeting), the team enjoyed the dinner – the first non-awkward occasion of its kind. This is likely how the team would remember their time in S.C.A.M; so, as Gemma laughs at a joke Manan told while James mimes a choking manoeuvre around his own neck and Steve puts his arm possessively around Gemma as if to say ‘mine, go away’, the invisible camera with which these events have been chronicled pans up to see the whole restaurant of similar groups of people being happy, the team continue their dinner. Over this, it may come with little surprise that we shall draw a veil.

Thursday 18 December 2014: The News Part Fourteen: The Disappearing Car Bomb

Dylan and James had acquired a small studio above a bar. That was pointless, really. They no time of total silence, ever. And the one time a person had been flung through the roof while they were in mid-broadcast. That had been awkward. They ran a satirical YouTube channel that got almost no hits. Maintained it almost out of a sense of duty – hanging on to what they’d lost. They were talking about the current geo-political climate. Then the lighting rig shuddered due to a particularly violent pub quiz downstairs. After falling off its perch and smashing on the ground, James’ patience with the temperamental situation was at an end; “no, that’s it,” he said tersely, “I’m done. I quit”. And he walked out of the studio, slamming the door behind him, leaving Dylan slack-jawed and unsure what to do, with a camera still rolling and a mess to clean up.
“Uh, sorry about this guys”, he said to the camera, even though he’d be able to edit that whole bit out, “but I think we’ll stop there for now. I only hope to see you again in the future.”
He got up and walked over to switch the camera off, standing in silent confusion looking at his empty and slightly messy studio, wondering what to do now. He switched on the TV, checking the late-breaking news.

Manan was on summer break from Drama school, working most days in McDonalds. He thought that was what the first question on the Drama exam should have been; “What exactly made you want to work in McDonalds?” He figured he may as well get used to it, he’d probably be doing it on and off for the rest of his life. The station closing down had emptied his life completely – and while Drama School had partially refilled it, there was still an emptiness.
He sat in an apartment in the city, watching all the cars go by and feeling slightly nostalgic and regretful. The TV was on and the 10 oclock news was playing, not that Manan was focussed on that.

The river was an unnatural shade of green. Gemma wondered if she took her hairclip out and threw it at the water, whether it would bounce off. She noted an approximate hex code for the shade of green (#42a34e) that she would use in a square on her blog later. She also took a picture, but she probably wouldn’t use it. She’d done five posts in the last week, mind you, she was good at this job. She’d done it before in a proper news station. Well, they’d messed almost everything up at almost every opportunity but it had sort of worked for the time that it had been active. She certainly had some good memories, and missed it now it was gone. She saw a news car following a police car, that then both stopped. A policeman got out and gave some sort of statement to camera. She supposed she’d find out what statement had been given later on. She packed up her gear and walked back to her flat.

Shivay’s legs were sore. They had been sore for the last month, ever since taking this job. Sometimes he liked to sneak in here after hours and just sit on the concrete studio floor working in After Effects. He liked the size of the room and the way it was lit when the big lights were turned off. Atmospheric, casting huge shadows against the far wall from the windows looking into the corridor. But most of the time he ran around on errands from the producers of the news show he was working on – making sure the anchors were ready, making sure there were no technical difficulties, getting the producer a coffee. An unusually specific coffee. Then making sure everything was cleared and the lights were off at the end of a show. Not his specialty, which was editing and visual effects. He’d get there eventually, he supposed. But for now, he just had to run his legs off, and remember a better time … then he snapped out of it. Apparently there was a story that he was needed for. Immediately. On location.

The assignment in question seemed fairly risky. Because it involved, in increasing order of dangerous-ness, a terrorist, a bomb, and live reporting on national TV. At this point, Shivay was stressed, and this was just the beginning. The report they had received said that a bomb would go off in a carpark outside the Houses of Parliament. Sort of like Guy Fawkes, but not really because there would be no deaths. Shivay didn’t see the point if there’d be no deaths. He guessed it was some kind of demonstration. For what, nobody knows. The last political rally Shivay had been to was a charitable race set up by the Labour party. That race had ended with seven deaths and five burning buildings, but as the press officer at the time had said, no-one could be held responsible for those. Just one of life’s little mysteries. Shivay had just finished attaching a microphone to its associated boomstick when he looked up and saw Gemma standing a reasonable distance away on her phone. Then he saw a reporter ready to record, so he turned his attention back to the report, which went without incident for two minutes until Manan walked through the frame absent-mindedly. After tripping Manan up, Shivay finished the report and saw Dylan and James.
They were standing an equal distance from Gemma on the other side, writing down stuff in a notepad. Shivay called to Gemma, having the unintended consequence of drawing Manan; who had picked himself up, Dylan and James over as well. The whole team had gathered before the awkward conversation began.

“So how’s it going?”
“Well, it’s been better,” said Gemma.
“So, we’re reporting a terror threat right?” James asked.
“… Yeah?” Gemma was suspicious at James’ line of questioning.
“Okay, so question; when terrorists feed their little children, do they use the airplane method of ‘open wide’ while making airplane noises? Or do they just smash it into their faces?” James could barely keep a straight face.
This pissed Gemma off. “There is a situation of enormous danger, and you guys are thinking up cheap jokes?”
“Yes.” James was resolute. “Also it doesn’t matter whether the jokes are cheap or not because the concept of currency exchange …”
“Stop.” Dylan knew where the boundaries were, and that was a decent pole-vault with a jet engine over the ‘acceptable’ line.
There was awkward silence for about ten seconds, while James looked and felt like a plum. Then Shivay’s phone went off and he answered it. Swearing under his breath, he began to pack up his equipment.
“What’s up?” Gemma and Dylan asked simultaneously when Shivay put the phone down.
“The bomb went off outside the houses of parliament”.
“But … that’s across town.” James looked beaten at a game that had not yet started.
“Okay then,” Shivay said, “I propose a race. This race has two components – get the best story possible, and get to the location as quickly as possible and without looking like an idiot”.
“Impossible for James or Manan,” Gemma said, who then got the evils from the team’s two resident ‘idiots’.

The race began immediately, and with Shivay tripping up Manan again. Dylan and James had the largest advantage, as Manan was on the floor, Shivay had to pack up his equipment, and Gemma had to finish her notes first, such was her perfectionism. The journey across town was reasonably uneventful, except that Dylan and James were stuck in traffic and Manan created the aforementioned traffic by ploughing into a lamppost. Upon arriving at the scene, Gemma was in the lead and Shivay not far behind; but when setting up his equipment took him time, Gemma was convincingly in the lead. She set to work interviewing the people nearby, and attempting to get information – although she largely failed to do so. When Dylan and James arrived, they began similar interviews. Manan’s introduction to the post had taken him out of the race. Dylan and James’ interviews meant that most of the witnesses were offended and unwilling to talk further to news reporters; and they were no better or worse off. Shivay faced a similar fate, so the team called an impasse; except for Manan, who was clearly last.

Then Shivay received some news from his supervisors. If he could get the best story, compared to other news outlets, he could get a promotion. So the team decide to pull together to help him get the job.
“Okay, so you get the cameras all set up and do the lead-in and whatnot.” Dylan took charge immediately.
“But it’s live, so …”
“… it’s have to be someone that looks alive, and not like they’ve been rotting for two years.” Shivay had changed in the six months and was no longer concerned with your feelings. Even though the team was helping him.
So they set to work. Dylan made sure everything stayed on the rails (surprisingly accurate, because they carried out an interview on a train at some point), Gemma made sure the audience would like it and clapped Manan across the face at least once (take one for the team), Manan did the performances although he was distracted by about twenty things before even taking his first step, Shivay kept the tech up and running (literally when a magpie stole one of the SD cards). James did basic editing and before the close of business hours, the report was done.

“So, gents”, said Shivay. His voice echoed through the empty studio. The lights still hadn’t been switched on, so the unusual lighting he liked was the current lighting of the room.
“So gents, this is where we’d work if we get the job.”
“You’re saying this like it’s a sure thing.” Ever the sceptic, Gemma needed to make sure they didn’t get carried away.
“Sure, but if I do get it, then I’ll try and let them give you guys jobs as well.”
“And if you don’t …” James began.
“Don’t?”
“Let’s just say my therapist once told me that I have this obsession with seeking revenge… we’ll see about that”
“What?”
“Nevermind.”
“So now we wait.”
There was a pause for about five minutes. Then Manan said, “seriously guys, what do you think of me?”
Shivay was first to reply; “There’s only two things I don’t like about you – your face.”
Then Manan sulked for the next hour, and after another five-minute pause, Gemma spoke.
“How about I put on some music?”
“The last time you put on music, it was like we were at a funeral. You might as well have called the disc ‘Now That’s What I Call Mourning’. Your music taste is … questionable.”
“Well, I’m putting my foot down,” Gemma said as she got up and locked the door. “You are now hostages and you will listen to my music.”
Then the others left the room through the back door while Gemma went to put on the aforementioned whale-noise-like sounds.
“… guys? Anyone?” But Gemma’s voice echoed through the now-empty room.

An hour later the team gathered in the room, anxious to hear the result of their story.
Shivay came in with his boss.
“Well,” he said, “they liked it. I needed to also show them our showreel from last time, but aside from the incident with the beehive, they were confident in our abilities.”
“The incident with the beehive?” Gemma was puzzled.
“Before you joined us. Best not …”
“Any other questions?” the boss said. The team signalled no, so he left. Then Dylan looked up and asked “actually, there’s an urn in the bathroom – what’s in it?”
“Oh, that. That’s granddad. We figured he’d been creepy in life, so why not?”
Dylan was confused and freaked out by this reply.
“So what are you saying?” Gemma wanted clarification of the whole situation.
“Well basically I’m saying that because of our report, the new bosses want to assign us a workspace and ensure we use it correctly and keep it clean. They’ll do it at some point in the near future.”
“So what do we do now?”
Dylan turned away from his team, and muttered at such a volume that they couldn’t quite hear.
“Back into the fray,” he murmured. Then he moved off to sort out their workspace by moving the gargoyle out of the studio without scratching the floor (he didn’t manage it).

Thursday 7 January 2015: The News Part Fifteen: Four Men In A Car

It turns out a five-seat car driving up to Auckland from Hamilton for eight hours is rather uncomfortable. For a start, Manan had a scrabble board out across the back seat. And the budget was expected any day now, so the tension was palpable.
They had just stopped for fuel – but would have to stop again just after entering Auckland because the car was small, which posed its own set of problems. The scrabble board, for instance. Right now, Manan and James were playing; Manan because he wanted to, and James because he had no choice.
“Oh, look I’ve got one,” Manan said, as he prepared the letters. Then he casually said, “this car’s very saxqith”.
“Saxisqith?” James asked, suspicious.
“Cramped, claustrophobic”.
James gave Manan a look that said ‘you don’t fucking say’, which of course Manan entirely failed to notice, while also saying “Manan you can’t just make up words to fit the seven letters you have left. If you’re gonna play, then play properly, otherwise shut up and read the script. I know you’re going to drama school now, but you’re really not that good at acting.”
Manan looked hurt as he sulkenly placed the word ‘six’ down, and got a triple word score.
“At least I’m learning from my past mistakes – where are you with Gemma?”
Shivay cut in from the fornt seat; “Never in the same room, he’s like a scared little girl. Which is funny, because if I were Gemma being chatted up by James …”
James stopped Shivay’s interjection with a palm to the back of the head.
Dylan was browsing facebook and alternating that with the bank website, waiting for his budget and beginning to get a little cheesed off with the noise; “could you all just shut up and be quiet and stop talking?”
“YES THAT’S IT, TALKING” James yelled as he placed ‘talking’ down on the scrabble board, edging out Manan on the score board.
“Okay fine. So gents, how much longer?” Manan was curious. A curious Manan was a dangerous Manan; you were allowed to use force to stop him. A warning system hadn’t worked.
“About another hour, but then we have to stop for fuel. We could play a game …”
“We already are.” James gestured at the scrabble board he was playing against his will.
“No I mean another-‘nother game,” Dylan said. “I was thinking ‘things they say in Hamilton’.”
“What about ‘things they say about Hamilton?” James mused.
“So then it’s ‘ARGH WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU GO THERE’ as the only acceptable answer?”
“True, true. I vote awkward silence and Scrabble.”

The freedom of non-local reporting was intoxicating for the team. They especially enjoyed the freedom of having a road trip with no Gemma. Although, they had done a full technical briefing before they left. Well, they’d tried. Manan had ended up with a flyswat in one hand and the camera in the other – using the wrong one to swat a fly and accidentally smashing it into the wall. Then Shivay had pointed out the fuel budget was missing a zero and Gemma entirely misjudged both the audience and the quality of product the team were providing. But Gemma had let them go, on the proviso she could vet what they had taken upon their return.
Despite having shot the report on a Windows Phone (other phones are available) and editing in the car on the way back up North, the team were on track, barely.
Then the renewed sense of optimism and purpose felt by the team was completely and entirely crushed when the car broke down.
Then they were sat by the side of the road waiting for the AA.
So they started to talk, mostly about Gemma.
“So, when you two were after Gemma; did you actually … you know, want her?” Shivay asked James.
“I think it was just kinda something to do, really. Although my standards are so low that I’d say yes to a brick wall if it asked.”
“But for that to happen, you just need to yell ‘will you go out with me?’ at a brick wall.”
“So if that ever happens, I’ll be set. Shiv, why did you get this station set up again? We left it not entirely badly last time …”
“Because life was boring without it. Even though we were shit … it was something. And it has improved, for one we’re getting a budget and paid this time.”
Dylan and Manan cut in at the same time, “there’s the truck”. And sure enough, there it was. Then the reasonable forward pace it had built up – stopped. Dylan ran to check it out, and the truck had broken down. “Well that fills me with confidence,” he said.

Shivay pressed the export button and then sat back, impressed. The team gathered around to see what the report had looked like.
The camera panned out from behind a tree to show Manan shuffling some papers in his hand in a field. Then he spoke.
“Auckland house pricing has risen to the point that first-home buyers are having to move out of the city, and even to other cities to buy land. I mean seriously, why else would you go to Hamilton?”
“To give someone a really good fu –” James cut in from the sidelines.
“Yeah, well I suppose there is that. But they invented archive rooms in law firms for a reason, didn’t they?”
“Manan, carry on with the report, you’re making us look shit.”
“Well, ex-cuse me, Mister Hypocrite,” Manan was mock-annoyed, with an exasperated look that James entirely failed to see. Then he continued, “Foreign house prices have gone in similar directions, so, over to our foreign correspondent; DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?”
Dylan sighed. “I suppose that’s good enough, by our standards, and on no budget. I mean, we are kind of getting paid for this – doing the open to a story and then some jokes.” They carried on driving in silence for the next five minutes, then were back at the studio.
The team pulled into the driveway outside their studio, and looked across at their reception area. All was not well. The façade of the studio was glass, giving a clear view into a space that looked like (pardon the cliché) a bull had been let loose in a china shop. As such, it appeared they had been robbed. Shivay snuck around the back and detached a piece of drainpipe from, well, the drain. Then Gemma walked along the road in much the same way that the boys had driven. She was carrying coffee. Was, because she soon dropped it, with a look of shock, horror and disgust. Then that look intensified when she realised what she’d done.
“… my … my coffee …”

Friday 16 January 2015: The News Part Sixteen: What’s That Noise?

The team were cautious on entering the building. Cautious, as in careful to preserve their own life, rather than ensure the safety of the whole team. As it were, they entered separately and cautiously, like sheep navigating a minefield. Shivay had a baseball bat, although it looked as though the property was unoccupied. That being said, Manan looked as though he had a brain until he opened his mouth. So it pays to be sure.
“Shiv, did you finish the export of the ad? It needs to go out at 6 oclock tonight.” Dylan started speaking before walking through the front door. Then he did, and immediately wished he hadn’t. The team’s property was strewn all across the floor of the room – and presumably all the other rooms too – like the toys of a child who’d just had a top-tier temper tantrum. It was immediately obvious the report would not go out at 6 oclock. So they figured there’d be no programme that evening, and after a short and slightly confusing phone call to their bosses (who claimed they’d already arranged back-up viewing), they set to work tidying up.
For a while the team worked like a well-oiled sandshoe, in that they did the job they were meant for in a slightly better fashion than they would normally have done for slightly longer than they would have done it.
Then the sun went down. This is roughly the point at which all prior plans went out the proverbial window. And the reason for this is simple; the team started hearing noises. Not over the top noises, like a dog barking, the skid of car tyres on the road, or cats fighting; but small noises – creaks here or there. The odd scratch outside. Muffled voices.
It was going to be a long night, and Dylan couldn’t decide whether he was glad they’d stayed to keep the studio safe after it had been robbed, or wishing they were all at home in bed.
It was going to be a long night, he thought as the sun dropped below the studio’s perimeter fence, plunging them into darkness.

“How does this sound?” Manan read from a script he had been working on, “economic news … we’re all fucked”.
“Bit blunt, but it does summarise it rather well,” Gemma said, while thoughtfully twiddling with a pen.
Shivay spoke, “We need some dinner or something, otherwise we won’t survive the night.
He got the phone and rang through the order, "who's speaking please?” The voice at the other end said “You are." Then Shivay decided to stop messing about and placed the order. It would be ready in twenty minutes. Manan went out to get it, after losing a lively game of ‘not bitch’ where he was also hit with a chair. Then Manan was gone and James spoke; “I play guitar, why do people not like me?”
“I thought you were gonna do the fingering a minor gag”, Dylan replied.
“But seriously …”
But he never received an answer because there was a particularly loud creak accompanied by movement outside and a scratch at the door. Gemma screamed, and James turned white. Well, whiter.
Then the noise stopped for a while, so Shivay spoke.
“You can sound like an expert on anything if you say it with enough confidence.”
“Yeah? How’d you know that?” Gemma replied.
“I got a degree in basic psychology from AUT.”
“Did you?”
“No. See, I told you it was easy.”
Then Shivay took over the script Manan had been working on-and-off on over the last week, and the rest of the team settled into silence.

“Rock, a – bye baby …” Shivay sang, as he coughed and straightened up. He continued to read from his script; he’d been in character, “And it seems the man lacked a convincing lullaby. Oh, wait, sorry, alibi.”
Then Manan texted Gemma and she went to the back door to let him in. Manan, traumatised from his experiences retrieving the pizza, refused to talk about his experience. Either that, or he was just being a dick.
So they ate the pizza in silence. Well, silence except for the persistent creaks, grumbles and noises from outside that kept the whole team on edge.
“What do you think is outside?” Gemma was the first to say what everyone else was thinking.
“Manan probably knows. After all, he did go outside to get the pizza.”
“Yeah, but he won’t talk,” James pointed out, looking at Manan who had gone pale and was slowly rocking backwards and forwards.
Manan said something, but not what anyone wanted him to say; “hey guys, do any of you actually like me?”
“Yeah, you’re all right,” Dylan said.
Shivay cut in with “there’s only two things I don’t like about you.”
Manan motioned him to continue.
“Your face.” There was a pause. Then Shivay said, “but seriously if I disliked any of you do you think I’d have even worked with you last time?”
“That’s true I suppose,” Manan said. “Never thought of it like that.”
Then the break was over and the team resumed the tidy-up. Dylan was in the lobby, Gemma in the studio, James in Dylan’s office, Shivay in the edit suite and Manan’s job was to ensure all the hallways and bathrooms were the right way up. After some time, Dylan called a meeting via walkie talkie.
The team set down what they were doing and tuned in for Dylan’s address over their walkie talkies. But all they actually heard was a creak, and Manan jump because he heard a noise and knocked over a statue. The resulting smash deafened the team, although they heard three loud knocks over the intercom, instead of Dylan’s comments.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
It turned out that there was indeed something or someone outside. They were on their way in. The team braced for the defensive, as Dylan clicked off the intercom and his attention turned towards the door. There was a cracking sound, then the door began to swing open …

Monday 19 January 2015: The News Part Seventeen: Protect The Station

Running at the door didn’t help. And it gave Dylan a sore back. Well, the door didn’t close. But it didn’t open any further. Dylan was thinking fast – well, reacting instinctively and therefore not thinking at all. He saw a medium sized boom stick. He whacked the door with it, and heard a faint ‘ow’ from the other side. But then the stick broke and the intruder forced his way in …
Gemma and the rest of the team weren’t faring much better. They had run into their respective guard zones and were frantically ensuring the integrity of the rooms. Needless to say, this was failing. Gemma had the most success; having locked the windows in the studio and drawn the big thick curtains that made it pitch black. That would be hard to get through. It also made it impossible for Gemma to see, as she tripped over a rogue tripod on her way back to the light switch. But after a particularly interesting experience with one of the legs, she had secured the studio.
Manan had less luck, mostly due to the fact that his job was to roam the hallways and bathrooms and secure all of it. But he figured out the only outside-facing room of that lot was the bathroom, and securing that was easy as there was only a relatively small window above the toilet that he didn’t think a man could get through. Then he picked up his walkie talkie and jokingly said; “the bathrooms are secured ma’am and we await further orders.” He clicked off and saluted at nothing.
Shivay had no work to do at all, or so he thought. Dylan’s office had no external walls. So Shivay did what Shivay did best; wasted time until the shit hit the fan, and even more after that.
James had secured the window in the edit suite, but was on edge with a stick. Then he noticed the door was still open and ran to slam it. Gemma screamed from the studio.

“Would you like me to put the kettle on?” Dylan attempted humour, and by and large failed. The man who entered looked as though his father was a brick wall and his mother was unfortunate by way of looks. Fortunately, he was wearing a balaclava.
“So … what’s up?”
“Like hell I’d tell you that.”
“The fact is … the police are on their way here, so you may as well.”
“Yeah, nah. You didn’t call the police. Your outfit has a hashtag ‘#TeamDylan’ and is absolutely useless, so you didn’t call the cops.”
“So what would you have me do?”
“Kiss my shoes or just surrender? Also; your female employee – I’d ride that like a stolen bike”.
“Don’t remind me. That was six months of company time I’ll never see again.”
“So you and her …?”
“Good lord no. But two employees …”
During this conversation they had been slowly moving backwards, they reached the door, and Dylan picked up his walkie talkie.
“Hey, guys,” Dylan said into the walkie-talkie, “I’ve lost the foyer”. Channel 8; 0. Intruders; 1.
James was in the edit suite and about 70% sure all was well. Then Dylan’s communication came through, so James braced himself against the door to secure the room. This backfired when an intruder opened the door from the outside and knocked James out. Channel 8; 0. Intruders; 2.
Shivay hadn’t been paying attention at all. He’d been on Facebook, in fact. Convinced he was safe in Dylan’s office. So he wasn’t expecting a balaclava’d intruder to knock him out and tie him up against the desk chair. The only communication he sent through was “yeah everything seems secure; oh fuc-” Channel 8; 0. Intruders; 3.
Manan found himself in the toilet when a hand reached through the small window and grabbed his head. Then Manan’s head was smacked against the window until the glass cracked and the assailant climbed through, looping Manan around his shoulders in a fireman’s lift. Channel 8; 0. Intruders; 4.
Located in the studio, Gemma was on guard when Dylan’s walkie takie went dead. Then she heard scratching at the window. Finding a cricket bat randomly lying around, she prepared to give her assailant the surprise of his life. Then he opened the window from the outside, but immediately proved he wasn’t as impressive as he could be by falling clumsily through. He had minimal time to dust himself off before Gemma swung the bat, fair play be damned. Then she tied him up against the radiator, which has a whole set of accompanying jokes.
“The studio is secured”.
Channel 8; 1. Intruders; 4.

Quite some time later and the team ended up in the studio. This meant that Gemma was entirely in control, and she had to deal with the team slowly waking up. For anyone that’s ever tried to get a teenager out of bed on a Monday morning (or any morning, for that matter), you’ll appreciate the difficulty and frustration of this task.
At the time, Dylan hadn’t thought about this turn of events; Gemma being in control was highly unusual simply by virtue of fact that there were also five balaclava’d men in the room. The intruders. And they weren’t even unconscious. Eventually everyone was awake, and Gemma started off the proceedings.
“So. What were you all doing here?” she said with a knowing smile.
“We came to inspect the property.” One of the balaclavas spoke. So it sounded like he had a mouthful of cotton, which, in a way he sort of did.
“Why?” The smile continued, and Dylan began to suspect that all was not as it seemed.
“To ensure your working environment was adequately, well … safe.”
And then it made sense, and the team had been wrong all along. Dylan moved to apologise for their behaviour. Not the half-arsed apology given by someone who’s had a fight with their lover and doesn’t know what they did wrong, but the apology of someone who thinks they ran over your cat.
One of the hoods waved him to stop, then removed his balaclava before speaking.
“Don’t worry about it”, he said. He was the one that looked like he’d been mashed. “We expected something like this; just a question – did you let us win? Or is that what you’re like at sports?
The guys all looked down. “We let you win,” they mumbled, sharing a guilty look saying that was a lie.
“But Gemma knew all along,” the hood continued. The shared guilty look turned to outrage, “DID SHE?”
“Well … yeah. Everything since you guys got back has been an act, including the dropped coffee.”
“And Manan found out too.”
The look of outrage left Manan’s face and transferred to Gemma’s. “DID HE?”
“Yeah, when I went out for the pizza. I am a good actor, see?”
“And … long story short, we cleared you to continue to work here,” the man said. Then him and his cronies picked themselves up and left.
Dylan looked at his phone. “Oh look, the budget’s gone through. And Shivay, prepare to screen that thing we made in Hamilton.”

Tuesday 27 January 2015: The News Part Eighteen: A Case of Identified Mistakes

Gemma was conflicted. She knew there was no real place for her in the firm, as she’d always be knocking heads with Dylan for control. But on the other hand, these people had given her a job. Sure, because not one but two of the guys had fancied her, but you take what you can get, while simultaneously telling the two somewhat undesirable gentlemen where to shove their affection. And where not to shove it, under any circumstances.
Then Dylan called. He was cool, Gemma thought. He’d never fancied her. Or at least been good about hiding it. There was a meeting, apparently they had a job. A job that absolutely mustn’t go wrong. Gemma loved those. They never went to plan.
So the team assembled, like a puzzle that actively disliked the thought of being put together, in Dylan’s office.
“An on-the-side job came through yesterday evening after we all went home. We need to do exactly what we normally do in a day, but without time to edit. So everything in one take and done properly with no messing up. And we have to be able to prove it. Do you guys think, if we waited for the rest of the day to write it all up and learn the stuff, that we could do that?”
“Have we managed to do any of the other jobs you set us over the last year or so?” Gemma interjected
“Well, sometimes. Not a lot.”
“Like the time that cat food heist went horribly wrong, and the armed defenders’ squad was called. Or the other time where Manan got the laziness award, but couldn’t be bothered to collect it.” Shivay added his two cents, and got a funny look from Dylan wondering why he still had a two-cent piece in his wallet.
So they wrote and rehearsed. And rehearsed. And re-wrote. And re-rehearsed. And re-re-wrote. And so on. Until later that evening, they had a functional script and everyone knew what they were doing. They prepared the equipment and devised a way of proving they were in fact doing what they said they were doing. Shivay called it a ‘camera’. Then they recorded everything and wrote it all down. Dylan checked the tapes, and there weren’t any mistakes.
They set it to air overnight and then left for the evening.

The next morning, the team arrived to a bulging email inbox. Or it would be bulging, if it had a physical presence. Many of these emails were complaint emails. From the more sophisticated “what are you guys thinking?” to the “the fuck is this shit?” end of the spectrum.
Dylan was confused. The report had been exactly as specified, and gone out with little trouble, as proven by the record of transmission. Gemma received a text from the bosses at the station, saying she would need to find the team members who were responsible for the mess-up, and then they’d most likely be fired (from a cannon at 50 kilometres an hour).
So Gemma began the interviews straight away, and immediately wished she hadn’t. Manan categorically denied doing anything other than following the provided script, while Shivay avoided the questions when prompted, instead electing to point out that his animal-shaped biscuits had a label that said ‘do not eat if the seal is broken’. Gemma filed Shivay’s unwillingness to answer the questions in her ‘let’s come back to that’ file. Although security tape footage showed Shivay at the edit desk for no more than twenty minutes; the approximate time it would take to import, stitch together and export the video. So Gemma could be about 60% sure he hadn’t done it. (But not more, because he had done this sort of thing in the past. Shivay had been introduced to the concept of being serious about a year ago, and had taken to it like a goose being told to cook a gourmet meal. Dylan wouldn’t have done it, and she couldn’t have (she would have remembered, unless she’d been roofied but then a) why hadn’t the boys done other less forgivable things to her and b) she wouldn’t have even then because she would have been unable to move).

There was still one interview to go at the open of business hours the following morning. But Gemma was distracted, because she’d walked into the office to see Manan eating tomato sauce straight from the bottle, hence cutting out the middle man (that being any food to put the sauce on), and eating raw pasta in alternate mouthfuls. The resulting confusion meant she was off her game when James sat down for their interview. As she suspected. He denied doing anything to mess up the footage. So now Gemma was confused, because none of the team claimed to have done it, even in error – and yet one of them must have.
Shivay interrupted Gemma’s train of thought with a “How goes the investigation, Chan of the Yard?” and Gemma threw her pen at him, told him on no uncertain terms to go away, then continued thinking.
Gemma still had no idea who had done it. If all the stories were accurate which she just sort of assumed for the sake of her sanity) then none of the team would have done it. So, in that case, who got into the studio in the middle of the night and switched the broadcast tape before its intended broadcast time. There had been no forced entry, no broken windows, no smashed doors, no ominous scratching …
She shivered at the memory. Even though she’d been acting, it was still a little bit scary.
Manan walked past. “Was it Professor Plum in the Library with the spinning thing?”
“It’s revolver, Manan. Revolver. And yes, yes that’s the answer,” Gemma said sarcastically. Some days she wished she could just up-and-leave this place. Then she remembered the resignation letter she was drafting.
A letter filed through the letterbox the next morning. It summarised a lawsuit.

To be continued …

Wednesday 28 January 2015: The News Part Nineteen: A Minor Hiccup In Proceedings

The lawsuit was serious. A slander suit for the content of the video, from the owners of a whiskey firm. At least in as far as Gemma could work out. It looked like a proper lawsuit from a law firm, not one of those fake ones you sometimes get from ‘Nigerian Princes’ that look like a four year old sat on a keyboard and printed the result.
So the team were summoned to court and assigned a legal counsel. He was a nice chap, not much past 30 and with sandy brown hair and a permanently surprised expression that looked like he’d just seen a shark in the water (read: absolutely terrified expression. He was probably new to this …) He set down the case files a little too heavily on the table, making a loud bang and then skidding across the table and over the other side, to make a satisfying splat as they hit the floor and scattered. He was here to brief them before the trial.
“So, my name’s Jeff,” he said, without laughing at his own joke. “You need to stick to the facts of the case and not get drawn into emotion too much. So far as I can see, the facts are that none of you did it. They will want to know who did. So they may bend those facts a bit, although I’ll try and stop that from happening.”
Then he questioned them each in turn. And took them to the courtroom. But all the preparation they had done was for nothing, as the judge simply gave an outline of the case, and then requested the offending clip be shown, for the record. There was no jury, it was likely this would be settled out of court, anyway.
The clip was played;
Open to Manan standing in the TV 8 studio, holding a script and a vox pop microphone. He began to speak.
“This is a public service announcement about whiskey,” he said while trying not to laugh because Shivay was probably pulling a face off-camera or something. He takes a swig of the whiskey and spits it, “good lord that’s horrible. It’s like that boardgame that’s rules actually state ‘the Game is over either when a player collects all cheeses, or when Daddy has a tantrum and kicks the board across the room’. Where was I? Oh yeah. A thing happened about some stuff that did a thing and stuff. That is all. Back to the studio.
The clip stopped, and the judge looked vaguely confused. “Why did you file a lawsuit over that?” he said to the opposing counsel, who then panicked and came up with a poorly thought-out response.

The next day, the team met up at their lawyer’s firm. This was to do depositions that would form the basis of the case when it transferred to the courtroom the next day. So, naturally, gathering the team in the conference room took some time, with Manan distracted by a cat outside the building, Gemma distracted by the building itself, and Shivay entirely failing to show up on time. To be fair, the building was worth looking (and so, to be completely precise, was the cat), with a large and ultra-modern reception/lobby area where Jeff met them. He then led them through the steel, wood and just general overall glitz that was their offices into the conference room; a room that made the reception area look like a slum in a large city. For one thing, Gemma was nearly swallowed by the foam on the chair she sat down on. Which was annoying, because she soon had to try and get back out of it, to go off and do case research.
No sooner had she done this than Jeff began the depositions; electing to start with James.
He admitted to faintly hearing a phone call that may (or may not) have been relevant between two members of the team. Both Manan and Shivay, in their testimony that followed, stuck to their stories.
Then Manan piped up; “can I ask a question?”
“Yes, what?” Jeff waited.
And waited.
Still nothing.
Nope.
Jeff motioned Manan to continue.
“No, that was it.”
So, anyway, the best you can hope to get as a settlement – ”
“is a nice house in the suburbs. But Auckland house prices …” Shivay had showed up by now, and this interruption earned little more than a shake off the head from all involved.
Then Jeff admitted he would be unable to attend court the next day.

The team panicked. Not a subtle panic by the guy who has perhaps-but-maybe-not-after-all left his keys at home, but the full-on panic of a high-school student that has yet to sort out their life priorities and thinks forgetting there was a test today is a big deal. By once again resorting to a lively round of ‘Not Bitch’ that resulted in at least one stapler being chucked out the window, Manan was elected as lawyer. And because the word of Not Bitch is final, they didn’t move to change that.
In court, things went roughly as expected.
The judge asked for a plea, and Manan (entirely unsure of what was going on), just blurted “guilty”. Then regretted that decision. So the judge allowed each side to make their cases, and when it was Manan’s turn, he began getting testimonies with Shivay.

Gemma, who had (at least for the moment) skipped court to research the case, had figured out the phone call was between Dylan and some businessman. Then she thought about that for a minute. If he testified … that could be trouble, big trouble. So she raced back to court while texting Shivay to stall.

“… and then we left for the evening to let the broadcast play out.” Shivay continued, as he received a text. He looked down before he continued his testimony. “Now, let’s think about that for a minute …”

Gemma had told Shivay to stall, and he would probably need to for some time. Due to Sod’s Law, the Auckland public transport system was at a standstill.

Manan was confused, so requested a five-minute break to talk to Shivay; in which he discovered what he had been told to do. This was a bad idea, because now Manan panicked.
The judge, upon returning to the case, asked “do hurry up. We don’t have until Christmas. Who’s your next witness?”
“A guy called … Manan Sharma,” said Manan, reading the next name off the list. “Huh. Someone has the same name as me.”
“That is you, you idiot.”
“Oh, right.”
“So, where were you that night?” Manan asked his own questions from the sheet then also dictated his answers. Then realised he was still stalling for Gemma.
He panicked, froze, unfroze and spoke. “I- I- I claim insanity.”
“Lawyers aren’t allowed to claim anything. Only the defence can claim insanity, although in your case I think that’s about right.”
Gemma burst in. “Could we request a day to get our shit sorted out,” she panted.
Outside, she told Dylan why.
“Am I allowed a short, violent exclamation?” he asked.
“Yes?”
“DAMN.”

To be continued …

Thursday 29 January 2015: The News Part Twenty: One Day To Save The Station

So they had one day to sort out their problems. Everyone involved knew that a court decision would shut down the station, but no-one was particularly prepared to address it. And because they had just one day to find out who this businessman was, why he was suing them, and stop him, as well as finding out who had committed the crime and how they had done it – Manan took the opportunity to have a nap. And Dylan came clean about the email.
“That was the guy who hired us asking us to do that job. He later called me and said some weird stuff, like that he’d need to collect the tapes pre-broadcast. I convinced him not to, and to just record it from the TV. Then I never heard from him again.
Then the executives got in touch through a phone call in which they said they’d shit down the station if they lost the court case, and Dylan pretended he wasn’t listening and that the line was dodgy, even though he just crinkled paper in front of the receiver and banged the phone on his desk. But after the it’s-a-bad-line-on-my-end-oh-what-a-terrible-shame-i-can’t-hear-you-byeeeeeee of the phone call, the writing was very much on the wall. Both literally and figuratively because it turned out there had been graffiti over the last week.
Dylan showed the team the email, and set James and Manan; who wasn’t in the best mood after being woken up, on to the task of arranging a meeting with the businessman. Then Dylan arranged the papers on his desk (because bad organisation got you nowhere), and saw Gemma’s resignation letter on the top of his paper pile. She must have put it there recently.

To their great credit, James and Manan at least tried to be professional. Although the person who answered the call was bombarded with puns until the passed the phone on to someone else. Basically it started at; ‘I’m Richard Dawkins. Thank you, good night, and God Bless. Shit.’ And went to ‘I’ve called the SWAT team; that should sort the fly problem.’ Eventually, however James found himself talking to the right person and arranging a meeting for later that afternoon.
Meanwhile, Gemma had been called in to Dylan’s office to discuss her leaving, if she was leaving.
“Is there anything I can say that’ll make you stay?”
“I don’t think so. You could promise that there’d be no stories like “Breakfast as Usual” we broadcast on a slow news day a few years back. Or try to actually do the jobs properly, is that too much to ask?”
“Yes, I think so. I mean, Manan once printed a script at size 200 font, after being asked to print a picture sized 200px and a script. So, yes. I think that isn’t going to happen. Have you definitely made up your mind?”
“Not definitely, but I’m pretty sure, especially now.”
“So let me know in a week.”
“You never know, I might walk out before then.”

The executive (turns out they sent Steve, Gemma’s ex) met them in their offices. Which may well have been a mistake. Because their client met them there at the same time.
Dylan started the meeting by alternating questions to the two people which in hindsight he probably should have met independently.
And then he remembered something.
The businessman had a posh and nasal voice and seemed oddly familiar. Then he stuck out a hand as Dylan said “and what may I call you?”
“Sir. Call me Sir”.
Oh, yeah that’s right. That guy.
“What do you want?” Manan had remembered him, and obviously decided he didn’t like him very much.
“Okay, stop the hostility. I can explain.”
Everyone was surprised. They were all expecting an angry lecture and now looked like a fifteen year old that had driven through a fence and then been told ‘don’t worry, we didn’t want it anyway’.
“Does the basis for the case even make sense to you?” he asked in a patronising tone, which was at least fair because none of the team knew what was going on. “Did it never make sense to you how none of you could possibly or would possibly have done it?”
And then Dylan and Gemma began to understand at the same time.
“So you got a key somehow and snuck in to swap the key?”
“Well yes.” Sir stopped, to let the drama of that remark settle in, although there wasn’t particularly much drama there in the first place, so the silence became a tad awkward.
“Well,” Steve was the first to move, “thanks for wasting all our time, Sir”. And he left.
Then the team stared angrily for the next ten minutes and the man felt uncomfortable breaking the angry stalemate that had formed. Then Gemma said, “so there must be a point to why you did all this.”
Sir replied, “yes, that is why I came here today. I have a serious job for you and needed to see if you coped well under pressure. It seems that, at least in the short term, you can. So this is the job. In a month, there is a local election somewhere up North and they want liv coverage on a network, but none of the majors will do it. So I want you guys to. Basically that’s it.”
“And that’s worth a whole court case?”
“Well yeah. Oops. Hadn’t properly thought it through.”
“So, remind us to ask you what we had to do in a month then we’ll do it,” Shivay cut in.
“How does that work?” James was confused.
“Easy. If you ask him what he reminded you to do, then he’ll tell you what he reminded you to do, and so remind himself to do it in a position that he can, meaning that you won’t have to do the thing he asked you to do in the first place.”
“Riiiiiiight. Why don’t I just write it in the calendar?”

The woman called a week later, and at first Dylan thought it was one of those recorded messages, but it wasn’t. Which was awkward. Then she asked Dylan to do something for her. A meeting …

Wednesday 4 February 2015: The News Part Twenty One: Police, Secrets and a Large Dose of Confusion

The police station was darkly lit so huge shadows were cast across the walls by the single lamp sitting in the middle of the table. The whole team were being interviewed, one at a time. Lightning struck and a faint cackle of a witch could be heard in the distance. No, it couldn’t. But that was how it felt.
“So, tell me in simple terms exactly what happened.” The policeman interviewing Dylan began.
“It started when a rival TV station got in touch. They wanted to meet us and eventually it was decided that I’d go”.

Dylan received the email from a girl called Helena who worked at the other broadcast network, requesting a meeting. He didn’t tell the others about it at all.

Gemma was being interviewed by the policeman. “He told us about it after he realised what she wanted. He wanted to know what we thought …”

“ABSOLUTELY NOT.”
“Oh, come on it can’t be that bad, can it?” Dylan was on the back foot here, he hadn’t expected this level of backlash from the whole team.
“Look, we just can’t let you do this. What if it goes wrong?” Gemma was the voice of reason in this particular case, although everyone except Dylan had been against the idea, just less articulate about it.

James spoke to the police officer slowly and carefully. “He must’ve done it anyway. We wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t. I don’t know any more than that, though.”

Dylan met the girl at a coffee shop somewhere in the City. It was expensive, but going on the company card. That’s the best sort of first date; let your workplace pick up the bill. She was his sort of person, too. In control, sophisticated. Or the sort of person he liked to think he was.

Shivay had his head in his hands. He probably had work to not quite be doing. “So we all met her; well, except James, he wasn’t in."

“Guys, this is Helena."
“Yeah, cool. Nice to meet you.”
The way Dylan and Helena were standing made Shivay uneasy. Then there was an awkward silence, so Shivay said “should I go and stick my head in the oven?”
“We’ll need you in a few minutes.”
“Microwave, then.” And he left.

Manan wasn’t really paying attention. Which was funny, because the policeman wasn’t either. “Then, after Shivay left, Helena wanted to know our secrets of success."

“I’m sorry, what?” Dylan almost spat out his water.
“You guys do realise your channel is quite successful … apparently people like watching idiots mucking around.”
“Certainly explains the popularity of Top Gear. So what exactly are you asking?”
“You give me your secrets and you can have ours.”
There was a faint ‘ding’ noise somewhere in the distance.

“So I figured out a way we could do the trade, so it was ensured that we both got what we wanted.” Dylan continued his interview.

“BUT IT’S A CRIME.” Gemma was livid. Dylan guessed this was probably the final straw that broke/is breaking the camel’s (although he’d never call her that to her face) back.
“Well okay, it’s not like we’re going to get caught and what of we learn a lot from her? It’s not like she’ll learn anything from us!” Dylan was also exasperated now.
“All the more reason she’d turn us in afterwards! It’s like fake rape accusations by women that are disappointed.”

“But he went ahead with it anyway, around the time of the monthly office ‘do’.” Shivay laughed at the memory – his own private joke.

“Do come in,” Dylan said to Helena, who was standing apprehensively at the door of the studio that had been decorated with balloons. Well, balloon. You couldn’t waste money on these things.
Shivay, James and Manan were all crowded around the door.
“Don’t you guys have stuff to be getting?” Dylan asked, and they went off. No sooner had they done this then Dylan moved a desk chair and a few tripods to block off the door, and beckoned Helena to sit down. Then he pulled two cans of V from a nearby drawer and opened them with a nonchalant flick of his wrist. Then his can exploded over his shirt.
“Well,” he said, looking down at the mess, “cheers.” He passed the can over.
“Look, Dylan,” Helena said, “I fancy you, at least I think I do. Never really done this … sort of thing.”
“So if all this works out, you’re saying we could …” he didn’t finish his question. He didn’t need to.
“Yeah. If it works out. But if it doesn’t then …” She didn’t finish her statement. Her slightly threatening tone made the finish of the sentence clear.

Shivay was being interviewed. “I would think that she hung him up with duct tape, if you like. Made sure that his case against her wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.”
“By doing what?”
“Cutting off his legs. Metaphorically, of course.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, she could do many things. With Dylan, asking him out is probably enough. That would certainly explain why he did it.”
“He did it? You don’t know it was him”.
Shivay said nothing, but a glint in his eyes told that he knew more than he was letting on.

“So I don’t know what to do.” Dylan was conflicted, and had chosen Shivay as his moral compass.
“So what you need is someone who could plausibly have got their secrets and be framed for the crime, but who wouldn’t lose too much from being fired.”
Gemma chose this precise moment to walk in and rather loudly announce “I’ve made up my mind. I’ll leave in a month.” She placed her official resignation letter on the desk.
Then two things happened at once; James and Manan, who had heard this, looked at each other in surprise, and Dylan and Shivay looked at each other as if all their problems had been solved. Because, in fairness, they had.

Gemma was fed up with answering questions, but she carried on anyway. “Then I noticed something was wrong and began to investigate. Dylan noticed, but I covered my tracks pretty well, I think.

Gemma looked through Dylan’s computer to try and figure it out. But then the man himself walked in and she panicked.
But recovered.
“What’re you doing?”
“Typing up the meeting with the executives from this morning.”
“Gist?”
“Program is shit, go back to the zoo.”
“Ah, yes. That meeting.” Then he moved on.
James and Manan leaned back around from the door in a conspiratorial manner.

“So,” Dylan’s interview continued, “I decided against it. Gemma must have stolen their secrets – that’s the only explanation.”
“Well, someone else may have done it. So no.”
“James and Manan are the kind of people that use our cameras as flyswats, so I think that unlikely, and Shivay wouldn’t do that; he doesn’t care enough about the station.”

“The effing camera won’t effing go for the effing shoot this effing morning.” Shivay was pissed off.
“Here, I’ll fix it,” Manan took the camera, while Dylan wondered aloud, “is that wise?”
“Yeah, but that was just once. He’d only be able to break it if he literally dropped –”
There was a massive smash sound in the distance, followed by a loud “oops” from Manan.
“Too bad Manan’s just a massive idiot. That’s not covered by the extended warranty.” Dylan to Shivay, in low tones.
Then Gemma came in. Cross. “You guys need to tell me what’s going on.”

“And that brings you pretty much up to date. After that, the other station filed charges. Then we were called here.” Dylan’s interview. Near the end.
“So, let’s sort out the chronology of events here, just to see if I have it down right.” The policeman was checking his facts and probably bored off his face. It didn’t help that he was scooting around in his office chair while talking.
“All right,” replied Dylan. “First, we received an email.”
“Yup.”
“Then she wanted to meet me, then the team.”
“Yup, and yup.”
“Stop interrupting. Then she asked for our secrets, then she said she fancied me. Then I gave her our secrets which is insider trading if anyone had a problem with that, but on our side we don’t. Then she gave us her secrets, which IS a problem.”
“Okay.”
“So Gemma gave out our secrets and received theirs.”
“So Gemma’s at fault here?”
“That’s about right, yes.”

Some time later, Dylan met with Gemma, where she was officially fired. For some reason the charges had been dropped on that condition.
James and Manan stood outside Dylan’s office listening in through the door, and they heard all of this. Then Manan got a bloody nose when Gemma opened the door on her way out.
Holding his nose to stop the bleeding, Manan said to James; “Dylan’s unfit to lead the station, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes, I would. But who would replace him?”
“Who indeed,” Manan said, tapping his nose knowingly, “ouch, fuck.” The bleeding started again.

Two more weeks passed. The team prepared to travel up North to film the election for Sir. All appeared calm. Like a duck. Calm on top but paddling like hell underneath. Something was brewing. It may just possibly have been Manan’s apple cider.

Sunday 8 February 2015: The News Part Twenty Two: Once Upon a Time in The North

Manan and James had it all carefully planned out. They’d gather intel for a while; by bugging the station in Auckland and then placing five strategic ‘bugs’ which were cicada shells with webcams in) in discreet locations in the workstation in the village; which had a long and unpronounceable name.
Eventually they had set up base for what was thought to be a two-week election campaign and coverage. Suffice it to say, the town was boring, and the team were suffering because of it. This was evident in a number of ways; the team had spent all of the second day of coverage – where literally nothing happened at all – in the studio attempting to record a weather report blooper in which the greenscreen falls off the wall. And failing, mostly because that way it wasted more time. There was nothing to report – the election was running smoothly, debates were on Friday and there wasn’t any scandal to speak of.
The drive to the place had been similar to the group’s previous road trip; games and jokes. The game’ fake road signs’ had filled the time rather neatly, with Shivay’s ‘if you can taste the sign, you’ve crashed’, and Dylan’s ‘You are now 200 meters beyond the junction that your piece-of-shit sat-nav is telling you you're approaching now’ being particular highlights.
Then they arrived and found that the building they’d rented needed tidying up. So Shivay did it.
“Oh, he’s using a vacuum cleaner now?” James was being smart, but Shivay had a reply, “I was using it to suck the life out of the room. But you’re here now, so I can stop.”

A week later, and Dylan was on the phone, to Helena. Well, Helena’s answer machine. Manan and James were listening through the door using a glass to amplify the sound. Every so often they would move and whack heads accidentally.
“So,” James said, in minute-long intervals, “how are we gonna do this?”
“I don’t really know, but he needs to be gone before we’re back home.”
“So, would we just tell the executives about bad practise?”
James was confused as to what this would achieve. “They’d just blame us and it’d backfire. We need a way that we’d be able to control the station.”
“So … what?”
“I’ll let you know.”
Dylan was still on the phone, and making a somewhat awkward phone call to Helena’s automated receptionists (ie. answer machine).
“Helena, it’s Dylan here, and this might be a stupid question but do you like music? No, I mean do you want to go to a concert? I mean of course you do, but do you want to see it with me? Oh I give up. You get the idea. I’m asking you out to a thing, just y’know. Let me know or something. Or don’t. I’ll be emigrating to a South Pacific island at the end of the day. So …”
“This reminds me of you asking Gemma out,” James said.
Then the candidate of the election screwed something up. Well, someone. But there was a fiasco, anyhow. And they reported it, and tried not to make it worse; in which they by and large succeeded. But the candidate still had problems with the team’s faintly mocking and satirical tone. But the greater majority of the team was not really paying attention to this or the campaign, because the greater attention was, as always, on the overthrow of the station. James was editing the footage of some election coverage for broadcast in the afternoon, while Manan was attempting to sneak around like a spy to gather intel. He only ended up getting weird looks from almost everyone in the village and a constipation prescription from the doctor. So James called Manan to see progress.
“Dude, have you found anything?”
“well, no. But I have got some lovely new tablets if you want one …”
“What?”
“Nevermind. Oh but I did hear something –”
Then Dylan and Shivay walked past, deep in conversation and going the other way. Manan heard the word ‘Gemma’ used multiple times. Dropping the phone, he went after the two, in an attempt to glean this gossip. Unfortunately, this had the side-effect of leaving James hanging.
“Manan? Where have you gone? Hello?” He spoke desperately into a phone to a person that was no longer there.

They did it right for once, and the jokes were all correct, and they didn’t screw anything up and they were (for the first time) happy with what they’d done. And the candidate still didn’t like it. Apparently the “have a look at this clip” joke; in which Manan pulled out a paper clip and held it for five minutes, was one step too far.
So he had a few words to say to Dylan. Which were, as is often the way, said on an empty field with both parties wearing boxing gloves.
“You really should control your team,” the candidate said to Dylan, as if this was new news.
“I’ve been trying but it’s like a rip in the ocean. You’re better to just let it take you then call for help.”
“So call for help.”
“But why? All that’s happened is you don’t like the way we present, so why hire us?”
“Sir hired you, not me.”
“Huh. I never thought to ask him what he thought.”
“The blithering idiot likes your style, says it’s endearing. Like Top Gear.”
And the chat went on for a while. Then they had an obligatpry round of boxing, which Dylan won. He still won’t tell anyone how.
Then the team met in their offices, and the shit hit the fan.
In which, Manan and James wanted to take over station, and were prepared to blackmail him using their knowledge of the insider trading. In which they had in fact already done all of this and were telling him with just enough warning to leave the station. Jump before he was pushed as they called it. In which, Manan spent the first ten minutes of the discussion thinking that ‘insider trading’ had to do with people.
Then two things happened at once.
Firstly, Dylan received a call from the executives demanding that he step down; that James and Manan were on hand to hear, and then take credit for.
He asked just one angry question, while he was throwing things into a large cardboard box; “Why’d you do that for?”
“Gemma” was the unanimous reply from James and Manan.
And the other thing that happened was Rangitoto Island erupted. Hugely.

To be continued …

Monday 9 February 2015: The News Part Twenty Three: A Blanket of Chaos

Gemma experienced the eruption first-hand because she hadn’t left the city. First there was an almighty rumble and a cloud of smoke, then the smoke just didn’t stop. Then the ash cut off air travel and confined the city to their homes. She didn’t know too much more than that, but apparently the ash was high enough that by mid-afternoon the whole of the North Island had been blanketed. She’d been paying attention to the coverage of some Northland election, when the newsroom did something stupid and she heard a familiar voice (James’) go “for fuck’s sake, Manan”. Then the reception went blocky and, after a time, cut out altogether.

In an unusual way, she missed them, but then she remembered why she’d left. Even though she could’ve set up the print division and had a proper job. But she didn’t want to work there anymore. Oh, well; she wasn’t sure what she wanted, exactly. She sat back in her lounge and listened to the patter pf ash on the roof and eventual groaning and creaking, and hoped like hell it would hold up.
The team started the morning peacefully. Then by about lunchtime, the ash began to be visible over the horizon.

James held a meeting that Dylan, unsurprisingly, was not in attendance for.
“So, gents. We don’t have a lot of time to get our shit sorted and get back to the City, before the ash gets here, and means we can’t move around”.
“Why would we go back to the city?”
“All our stuff’s there, and people will be wondering if we’re alive.”
“Really? Give me a decent shovel and a clean shot and I can fix that.” The team saw Dylan standing in the doorway.
“What are you here for?”
“My stuff. I’m certainly not here to help you. Pity the station’s the Special Corporation for Authentic Media. Should be something with the anagram C-U-N-T-S.” Tense, as you would expect.
“Ouch, man.”
“Not my fucking fault. You sacked me for fuck-knows reason and you expect me to be civil and help you to do your jobs. Well, I’m sorry, but I tried that and the three of you are simply beyond help, especially mine. So I’ll get my stuff and leave, then care less what happens to you people and whether or not you get back to the City.” Dylan left, slamming the door. Then there was a stunned silence for twenty seconds, until Manan got out his phone to ring Gemma.

The nerve of it. They wanted her back. It was as if they had no recollection of what they’d done, and how she’d been humiliated. She wouldn’t go back and she told them that. Shivay had been the lucky caller, so she’d had no troubles telling him where to stick his questions. If it had been Manan or James, she may have been a little more guilty about the fallout of being rude to them. But it wasn’t so she didn’t care.

Air travel had, by the evening, been cut off because of the ash. Also by this time, Manan’s innate paranoia and panic had set in. He was pacing around, ranting.
“I only need to make 34, then I’ve beaten Jesus at living,” he said. James was quick to point out that this would occur 16 years in the future. At which point Manan just stopped talking and carried on pacing at a faster rate.

Dylan realised he needed the team. To get home, mostly. He didn’t want to spend any more time with them than he had to. But he was stuck here if he didn’t. So he packed up his stuff, not that it had been unpacked from its transfer from the station basecamp, and went back across to ask for a lift.
“Could you guys possibly give me a lift back to Auckland?” There was an awkward silence. “Of course you could,” Dylan answered his own question because they weren’t going to.
“Why would we help you?” James was hostile and to be fair, he had a right to be. Shivay hadn’t been the brunt of Dylan’s earlier rant and Manan wasn’t paying attention because he was pacing around muttering about life insurance.
“Sure,” Shivay said, earning an evil glance from James, and grateful nod from Dylan.
“Why would you do that?” James asked, as if he’d forgotten what Dylan had done for them.
So Shivay said why. “Because, like it or not, we need him to run this. And he’s no good to us here, is he?”

So they set off in a car; which was risky, but desperate times call for desperate measures. It turned out they couldn’t leave after all, and were waved back by an unfortunate policeman getting buried in ash on a roadside. They convened in the team’s headquarters.
“So what do we do now?” Manan asked, while Dylan was taking a drink. He stopped, and with one smooth move, emptied the glass over Manan’s head. Then was told to grow up by Shivay.
“Look guys. We don’t have to forgive each other just yet and I do think there are solid reasons to be pissed off, but could we at least stop being childish until we get out of this thing?”
Then Dylan, Manan and James all grumbled responses that could be construed as “ok, fine.” But Shivay couldn’t be sure. Then Manan called Gemma back, on loudspeaker.

She said she would come back to the station. She said that, if the station survived, they could make a print division. She also screwed up slightly, and let it slip she ‘wouldn’t say no’ to either James or Manan if they asked her out. Then both James and Manan asked her out at the same time. Like, exactly the same time. To the word. So she had to say no to them both, at least for the time being. So she laid the phone down with a slight smile.

Manan put the phone down. James said to him, “you look tense, man.”
Manan fidgeted and said, “I’m not tense at all.”
Then there was a loud creak from the roof, and Manan shot about a foot up in the air screaming “FUCKING FUCK THE FUCK OFF – I’m fine.”
And something occurred to Shivay. “Hey guys, you know how when volcanoes erupt there are sometimes earthquakes and we’re on a small little island in the middle of the ocean?”
Everyone slowly turned and went “… yeah?”
“I’m just thinking, there could be tsunamis.
The team turned on the radio, to hear about any new damage, and right on cue, the first of the waves was announced. It would hit Auckland city in an hour.
The team felt helpless. No transport, no communication (any more), no way out.

To be continued …

Wednesday 11 February 2015: The News Part Twenty Four: Under The Blanket

The ash had cut off all telephone and broadcast communications except radio, and the team didn’t possess a radio. Then the town started rationing food, and, by their strict definition, Manan didn’t count as a person. He couldn’t work out what that definition was, then Shivay told him he’d taken his name off the list as a practical joke. Which backfired, because it couldn’t be put back on. It seemed the rest of the North island was rationing its food in this manner, and other restrictions (to ‘improve public wellbeing’) were going to be imposed before the end of the week. Because of the added stress, Dylan became the de facto leader of the station again, and they recorded a short and by-and-large reassuring message for the public; Manan telling them to stay inside and keep to the rations, and that everything would be OK. This didn’t quite come across, because he seemed to be about to cry.
The team met up in their offices, as they often did, and decided the only way to leave the town would be to ‘fake’ a medical emergency. But then Gemma pointed out it wouldn’t work. A lively game of ‘not bitch’ ensued, in which Manan’s leg was broken by a stray piece of doorframe. Without needing the ‘accident’ coverstory (because, as it turned out, it was completely true) the team tried to get help. Eventually, they were notified that a helicopter would arrive in about two hours, if the ash kept low. Shivay singlehandedly edited and exported the messages in under twenty minutes, a new personal best (his previous had been measured in days). It was almost like he was committing to the station more. Almost, because then he turned around and ‘accidentally’ threw his packing list out the window, where it was immediately buried.

In the air, and with all their stuff, the team finally had time to relax and ask the important questions.
“Manan, do you know how we can monitor what’s going on in Auckland when we land?”
“Well, no. But I do still have a few of these,” he pulls out a few webcam-infested cicada shells that he’d used for bugging the station.
“That’s really clever. But also annoying that you did it. And then it’s clever. But a bit annoying. But mostly clever. Well done, Manan”.
“Is this it for the station?” Shivay asked while on his laptop doing God knows what.
“Yes, I would think so. Delete all reports from the D Drive, we only have one more show.”
Shivay looked up in a pissed off manner from his screen, where he was editing explosions into some old footage.
“Whatever you say,” he sulked.
They looked down at the city, and couldn’t see much because a thick blanket of ash covered the ground, and made the roads highly risky and unstable for cars. The smoke around the whole city was beginning to clear and show the extent of the damage. Especially to the Harbour bridge, which had collapsed.
“In dystopia films, you know how you always wonder why the rest of the world’s doing nothing about it?” Gemma asked the question idly, although she earned everyone’s attention because they had not, in fact, ever thought that.
“No, what do you mean?” James. Unsure whether his concern was genuine or faked to impress her.
“It’s just that we know why. The rest of the world doesn’t care, not really.”
“Oh.” Then they neared landing, and Manan piped up.
“Oh but before we go, entering our “Who killed the employees of TV 8” competition is really simple. All you have to do is email a four-digit code to the head of BCB 8 Drama, who will then forward a copy of the code to me, and simultaneously send you a second entry form which can be used to get priority so we may place you in the draw. What’s the big prize? Who knows? [He taps his nose in a knowing fashion] You’ll have to wait and see”. Aimed at the pilot, Gemma supposed.
“See you all back at the station,” she said, as she unclipped her seatbelt.
“Gemma, in case we don’t make it back,” Manan paused, unsure, then continued, “I think I love you.”
Gemma didn’t respond because they’d landed. She could deal with that later.

Seeing the damage to Auckland City, the team realised they would have to broadcast genuine disaster messages. Manan began working on the script immediately, which began with the joke; “Hello and welcome to 8 News, we say what we like because what does it matter?” Then the helicopter landed and the team filed out quickly, to head back to the station. But Dylan had a better idea, so he stayed to talk to the pilot. The team were all running the two blocks from where the chopper had landed back to the station, except Gemma who had taken all the gear and conned a young gentleman out of his car using a snog-and-flash combo.

James saw a building that looked set to collapse, and some of the workers milling around concernedly outside said there was still a person inside, and that the building would likely fall down in five minutes unless they were rescued. There was movement inside the building and the person could see outside, meaning James could also see them. It was Helena, and just as this registered a hail of bricks and mortar collapsed in the doorway of the building. James would later liken the situation to Schroedinger’s Cat – where he was unsure whether Helena was alive or dead. So he made a life decision, in that he took his life in his hands, and began trying to help Helena out of the rubble.
Two minutes. There wasn’t much time.

On her route back to the studio, Gemma took her eyes off the road for a minute and a minor pothole made her veer off the center of the road, and then hopelessly close to the edge of a 10-meter chasm that had been created. Two wheels over and the car looked to be stable, but Gemma was in the driver’s seat. So the weight distribution could, at any minute, tip and send her plunging to her death.

Manan and Shivay had been faster than anyone else, and arrived back first. They had prepared the report and were waiting for it to broadcast, while simultaneously packing up their stuff to leave. It was unlikely they’d ever come back here after this. Then they noticed two things; a loud bang on the roof meant that ash dislodged and blocked the doorway, sealing them inside; and Manan looked to where he’d left the camera, and it wasn’t there.

Dylan was late getting off the helicopter, and the pilot needed to take off before the ash covering meant they were unable to fly. So they did that, and Dylan realised he’d met the pilot before – Steve. Steve must have realised this too, because he mucked up a control of some sort and sent the helicopter into a downwards spiral …

To be continued …

Monday 16 February 2015: The News Part Twenty-Five: Desperation, a Quest and Riding on Horseback

An image abruptly cuts into the otherwise empty broadcast station. It is Manan’s face, which is perhaps not the best of beginnings. Then he speaks, urgently, and panicked.
“Hello, everyone,” he says, looking over his shoulder off-camera. He seems to get some form of assent, then he continues, “I don’t have a lot of time. You need to stay in your homes if possible, and try to keep calm and hydrated. Because there are some people that have travelled unnecessarily, and are suffering for it.”
Gemma is still in her car teetering over the edge of the chasm, Dylan and Steve brace for impact in the helicopter mid-spiral, and James dons a hard-hat readying himself to help Helena.
“We’ll do what we can to help you, but more or less you’re on your own. Good luck.” The image disappears.
Gemma decides on a plan of action, James begins to dig, and Dylan and Steve hit the ground tail-first, with an almighty bang.

If their lives had a title sequence, this is where it would go.

Dylan and Steve felt the impact. There would have been no way possible not to feel it. However, due to their low altitude and the angle of impact, they got off reasonably lightly, with bruises and the like but nothing else serious. Stumbling out of the wreckage, they then slowly hobble their way along the road back to the station.
Gemma made a decision. She unbuckled her seatbelt and began to move out of the driver’s seat by standing on it and climbing over the back. Had she stood on the carpet, the car would’ve tipped; as it was the whole thing wobbled like a panicky bank robber’s conscience. But she’d made it, for want of a better term, into the back seat. Using a tripod to smash the window of the car door, she got out and called for some help. A passing white van (driven by a nice old woman doing a furniture delivery) picked her (and all the gear) up about ten minutes later, and they headed to the station.
James figured out very early on that it wouldn’t be easy to move the rocks and rescue Helena without collapsing the building. With Helena’s assumed help from the other side, James began chipping away at rocks, stopping after every blow from his axe to wait for the creaks in the now-unstable building to subside (which may not have been the best practise, but James didn’t care). After about half an hour of hitting rocks, Helena could be pulled through. No sooner had she been pulled through than the front half of the building collapsed; she must have nudged a rock on her way through, James wasn’t sure. She had, much like Dylan and Steve, scrapes and bruises but nothing serious. They set off towards the station together, with James keeping his hard hat on because it could be useful.
While the other were all fighting for their lives, Shivay and Manan were bored. Well, the report was still being transferred to the system for broadcast, and they’d lost the camera. To pass the time, Manan had gone full-on Sherlock Holmes. Meanwhile, Shivay was taking run-ups at the door to dislodge the ash, and stopping for breath after every run.
“So if we had it over there, and you’re looking at me like you know something, then you’ve done something with it,” Manan murmured, walking over to Shivay. “What have you done?”
“Oh,” Shivay was laughing, “I’ve done nothing.” He took another run, made a satisfying crash sound against the door, and hurt his ribcage, but other than that did absolutely nothing.
“Then what? You must know where it is.”
“I know exactly where it is, but you just need to look.” BANG. “OUCH”. Collided with the door.
“WHERE IS IT?”
“Under your chair.”
“Oh.”
Shivay took another run up. The door made a slightly hollow cracking noise and then split in half, showering Shivay with splinters and ash – some of which was unfortunate enough to land in his mouth. “Well, that’s it open,” Shivay said dryly.
It had smashed in its fall, and was therefore useless. Then a fax came in with a job on it, and they realised that they’d have to use cameraphones for the job (not for the first time). They also realised that in the current situation, the job was be exceeding complicated and difficult. They needed to film disaster messages on location in the city, and take them to Sir’s house on Waiheke island.
“Yeah, that’ll be hard,” Shivay was thinking aloud, “I mean we’ll be able to use the trains for a bit, and the busses for a bit, and probably a ferry or something, I’m not sure. Nothing for the whole journey though. But I suppose the first step is getting in contact with the others to let them know.

Luckily, they saw Gemma relatively soon after setting off. Or, more accurately, Gemma saw them and pulled over, startling them because all they saw was a white van approaching. Shivay and Manan filled her in on the task they had been passed down.
“So we have to get to Waiheke island in a day with the completed messages, and won’t be able to use any one method of transport for a long stretch of time.”
“So we have to use transport, but without … using transport?”
“Pretty much. And we were thinking head loosely to the port, stopping at the Skytower to film.”
“Yeah, that should work, it’s all pretty much in a straight line from here to there. And the journey shouldn’t take more than an hour.”
Shivay and Manan looked at her, and she remembered the ‘no transport’ thing. “Oh …”
“So how do we get in contact with the others?”

Dylan and Steve received a call from a payphone a short while later. Then they had their instructions and set off on the quest across the city.
“I’m not being nosy, but what are we actually doing?” Steve asked.
“I don’t think you’re nosy and we’re going to Waiheke. Gemma, James and Shivay need to film some stuff and they’ll meet us there.”
“If you don’t think I’m nosy, then why’d you write that in your diary?”
“So, better start walking.” They set off.

James and Helena had just begun walking back to the station, and Helena was exhausted from her near-death experience.
“So what happens once we get there?” She was already thinking ahead. James could see why Dylan had picked her.
“I don’t know, but we’ll be able to think of something as a team when we get there.”
“And to get there we, what? Catch a ride?”
“No.”
“What then?”
At this point, James’ phone goes off, with a rather loud and tinny rendition of The Proclaimers’ “I Would Walk 500 Miles”. James silences the device, looking apologetically at Helena. “Sorry, my ringtone.” Then he took the call, it was Dylan, giving him the instructions. He hung up, and they changed course, heading to the port. Then his phone went again, this time it was Gemma saying the exact same thing.

Shivay, Manan and Gemma had begun a walk, and quickly realised it wasn’t going to quick, or easy.
“Look, Gemma, what I said …” Manan began, addressing his earlier ‘I love you’.
“Manan, don’t. We can properly discuss it later. Look, I wouldn’t say no, but there are James’ feelings too ..”
“Okay,” Manan huffed, thoroughly put out.
Then Shivay said, “we should play a game to pass the time.”
“Scrabble?” Manan perked up and Gemma just rolled her eyes, while Shivay looked suspiciously at Manan.
“Oh I just had an idea,” Gemma said, “we could ride horses.”
“HORSES?” Manan and Shivay were outraged by even the suggestion.

Dylan and Steve had walked a bit, and stopped to rest.
“Did you go out with Gemma just to get back at Manan and James?”
“Well, no. What do I have to get back at them for? Prove I’m better than them, yes.”
“Ah.” Then Dylan looked around. “Hey, we could take a train, or at least try.”
“It wouldn’t get us all the way but it’s worth a shot.”

“Hey, we could ride bikes to get there faster.” Helena’s suggestion. Which had a few issues. She was fitter and female. This combo meant she would be less uncomfortable over long distances, and James saw this straight away, so he dismissed the idea and they kept walking.
“What are you thinking of doing once this is all over?”
“I’ll stay where I am, there’s no problems I can see. Why?”
“I’m thinking of leaving. There’s no place for me there anymore.”
“What do you mean, of course there is.”
“Well, yeah I have a job there, but I’ve always felt a bit tacked-on.”
Helena stopped his existential crisis in its tracks, with an abrupt, “anyway, we have to keep moving. Shake a leg.”
Then she looked at James who was shaking his leg, and rolled her eyes.

“What kind of idiot looks at a train station after a volcanic eruption and thinks, yeah why not?” Dylan was furious at Steve for letting him get his hopes up.
“So what do we do now?”
“We have to walk, there’s no other way.”

It turned out biking over thoroughly uneven ground was a recipe for disaster, as James found out and Helena pretended to understand and tried not to laugh. In their journey they passed a wild horse. Well, it wasn’t wild as such, it just wasn’t conforming to society’s notion of what a horse should be. Okay, fine, the fence had fallen down. Actually there were three …
They carried on going with little more incident than James yelling ‘ow’ every few minutes.

Gemma, Manan and Shivay saw the horses too, about ten minutes later. And they stopped for about five minutes with Gemma nodding meaningfully over her shoulder and Manan not understanding the noon-verbal communication. When he did finally turn around, his brow creased with digust.
“No, I won’t do it”.

Dylan and Steve set off and had made it about a kilometre when three horses in a V formation rocketed past them and Dylan could clearly hear Manan’s voice going “MY HORSE HAS NO BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKES. HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”. Obviously he didn’t help, but he did almost fall over in a fit of laughter.

Gemma and Shivay had mastered the art of equine dressage (which is essentially what it was) reasonably quickly. Manan, however, had initially found himself on a horse that could not stop, but soon found himself on a stubborn beast unwilling to start. “My horse has broken down”. Then after a particularly strenunous tug on the reins, the horse began moving in the wwrong direction, looking to Gemma and Shivay like he had his shoes on backwards. So they abandoned it, after letting the owner know first, of course, and Manan rode with Gemma.

Dylan and Steve were still walking and passing the time.
“I spy with my little eye,” said Dylan, “something beginning with r”.
“Road?” Steve answered
“No.”
“Umm, this is hard. Is it ‘road’ by any chance?”
“No, it isn’t road.”
“So what is it then?”
“Redundancy, never a good way to tell bad news is there?”
“You’re making me redundant?”
“Not as such, but it’s only a matter of time. Think about it.”
Then a bird landed on Steve’s shoulder and he exaggeratedly waved a tick at the bird, which then flew out of his hand and smashed a nearby car window.
“Oops.”

On the horse, Manan and Gemma could talk.
“So did I miss anything,” Gemma yelled back to Manan.
“There was a thing that happened, and then stuff and then a thing and stuff. That’s all really.”
“That was … helpful … I guess?”
“Look Gemma, what are your feelings about me? Could we give it a go?”
“I guess we could. May as well, what’s the worst that can happen?”
“Explosions, death and hot coffee everywhere?”
“Well. I guess we’ll see, when things get back to normal.”
Two bikes passed them and they could hear James yelling “ow, ow, ow, ow” as the bikes faded into the horizon.

Then the three groups met up at the port, and James was immensely relieved not to have to cycle any more. But there were only three spots left on the only ferry brave enough to cross the water, so James, Helena, Steve and Dylan had to find another way across – with Steve and Dylan electing for a kayak, and James and Helena coosing to jet ski.
On the other side of the water, the seven could talk properly.
“Look, Gemma, I’m sorry about setting you up for the insider trading. But we did manage to get the charges reversed.” Dylan started.
“I’m not actually mad at you for that,” Gemma replied, “I’m mad at that bitch,” she pointed at Helena, “for setting it up.”
“So would you work for us again?”
“To set up a newspaper, sure. I never felt there was enough room for me the way we were.”
“And you sorted out the … thing … with Manan?”
“Yeah, that’s sorted.”
“So. That’s all our shit sorted, should we drop this bastard film off?”
“And all without me having to write any fake obituaries, too.” Shivay interjected as they walked.

They arrived at the house just before sundown, so that they could stand out on Sir’s illustrious balcony and watch the sun go down. Anyone that wasn’t either a) extremely exhausted or b) a hardened cynic would have called it romantic. Unluckily for the great Cupid in the sky, the team were all knackered, so the romance of the situation was lost on them.
“So what now?” James asked, while looking over the water at the thoroughly damaged city. The haze caused by the ash had subsided just enough that a faint skyline could be seen. It was quite pretty actually, and Gemma took a photo of it to use as her desktop background.
“So, we all go back to our old jobs?” Dylan switched to admin mode.
“Except that we form a print division?”
“Of course. The Special Corporation for Authentic Media lives on. Or S.C.A.M for short.”
“Actually, I’m not going to.” James said this quietly and it was almost missed by the team.
“What do you mean? You’d be a good leader,” Steve this time.
“Exactly, and there’s only one leader spot, isn’t there?”
“So you could work with me, get a promotion of sorts.”
“Really? Would you do that?”
“Sure.”
Then the team saw no reason to stick around, so they made back to the shoreline. But someone was waiting for them there. It was a guy, barely older than the team, who looked as though his brain had trickled out through his ears.
“A while back, we gave you some drugs. What. You. Done. With Our Drugs.” He said in clear yet dim-witted-sounding English. James knew what the guy was referring to but looked at Shivay confused.
“I thought that was sugar?”
“Oh, fuck.” Then Shivay ran away, as did the rest of the team. And the thug pulled a gun, although James would have thought he wasn’t sober enough to. Although the sheer amount of physical evidence to the contrary meant that James didn’t make that assumption.
“Give. Us.” The thug wheezed.
James hesitated, which was excuse enough for the thug, who shot him, then staggered away down the waterfront and into a particularly deep hole some kid must’ve dug during the day. Deep enough that he couldn’t climb out.
James didn’t feel the shot although he heard it and was staring down the barrel of the gun. He stood for twenty seconds in total confusion.
“This is normal, is it?”
YES. James hadn’t heard the voice, as such. It was just sort of … there. It also appeared to come from everywhere at once. IT IS NORMAL TO FEEL NO PAIN IN THE INSTANT OF DEATH.
“So I’m dead?”
YES. The same word in the same way. Then something tapped him on the shoulder and James leapt about forty centimetres in the air. Then he quickly spun around and beheld a skeletal ‘man’ in black robes with a scythe. As you would expect.
“So what now?”
FOR THE LAST HEADLINE YOU’LL EVER DO, Death intoned, I WOULD RECOMMEND SOMETHING LIKE ‘NEWS JUST IN, EATING PLASTIC APPLES DOES NOT KEEP THE DOCTOR AWAY’.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” James said.
WELL, said Death, IF IT HELPS, YOU CAN MOVE ON WHENEVER YOU LIKE.
“So, this is a dream?”
PERHAPS. BUT EITHER WAY, THE FACT REMAINS, YOU ARE DEAD.
“Well,” James said, finding that he had no feelings as he looked around at his own murder scene and feeling nothing whatsoever, “there’s nothing for me here, is there?”
IT CERTAINLY IS RATHER … GRAVE LOOKING. HA HA HA HA. Death laughing had an odd and robotic sound to it. Then he sobered up. SO, ONWARDS?
“Yes, I think so,” James said.
WELL, OKAY, Death said. GROOVY. He grimaced. I’LL NEVER SAY THAT AGAIN. Then he swung the scythe and James wasn’t there anymore.

The team heard the shot and came running, but James was already dead. Over the following week, they sorted out his stuff and sent it back to his family, then attended the funeral (fun-eral, as Manan liked to call it when he blasted one of those streamers in someone’s face).

Shivay had bought flowers and he carried this fresh bunch across the road in the sunshine. Then he relaxed a bit, and held the flowers close to his chest.
“These good for you?” he said.
“Yeah, they’re good. Just place them there.” A female reply. So Shivay put the flowers down and then he looked up.
The whole team was standing at the graveside, including Helena.
“So,” Manan said, “I have Gemma, and Dylan has Helena. Who do you have?”
And then Shivay tapped the stone of the grave.
It crumbled away, leaving just a small and ornate urn on top of a foot-high plinth, with James’ name on it and the phrase “It’s been taken care of”. He picked up the urn and walked off.
“Well, come on then,” he called back to them, and Dylan was the first to move.
“How’s the teleprompter coming along?” Dylan whispered, for some reason he didn’t want the others ‘in’ on Shivay’s next scheme.
“Yeah, they’re just fine, no need to whisper. Also I nearly finished James’ obituary.”
“They’re … oh god, what have you done?” Shivay smiled, and Dylan knew he was getting nowhere.
“You could at least have cooked the chicken.”
And then Manan laid a frying pan next to the flowers, and stood there for a bit.
“So we killed them all,” he murmured.
Then he’d been left behind and had to sprint to catch up with the rest of the team.
If this had been a TV show, at this point, the screen would fade to black, and the metaphorical credits would follow. They would probably have been designed by Shivay and, despite Dylan’s protestations, feature funny variants of Manan’s and James’ names in all the acting roles. Gemma would be credited as ‘that bitch what does the theory stuff’, and Steve, Helena and Dylan would be credited as the Executive Producers spinning in their Executive Chairs.

Saturday 10 May 2014: The News Part One: Hostile Takeover

Tuesday 13 May 2014: The News Part Two: Professional Incompetence

Wednesday 21 May 2014: The News Part Three: The Game, The Interview, and Administrative Systems

Sunday 1 June 2014: The News Part Four: Jim'll Fix It

Monday 16 June 2014: The News Part Five: The Secret Life of an Editor

Monday 16 June 2014: The News Part Six: The Job, The Date, and Damage Control

Sunday 6 July 2014: The News Part Seven: The Executive

Tuesday 8 July 2014: The News Part Eight: Chemically Enhanced

Tuesday 15 July 2014: The News Part Nine: The Psychiatrist, The Body and All Other Issues

Saturday 9 August 2014: The News Part Ten: The Office Party

Sunday 10 August 2014: The News Part Eleven: Resignation Stations

Sunday 17 August 2014: The News Part Twelve: Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction

Wednesday 20 August 2014: The News Part Thirteen: And Now It's Six o'Clock

Thursday 18 December 2014: The News Part Fourteen: The Disappearing Car Bomb

Thursday 7 January 2015: The News Part Fifteen: Four Men In A Car

Friday 16 January 2015: The News Part Sixteen: What’s That Noise?

Monday 19 January 2015: The News Part Seventeen: Protect The Station

Tuesday 27 January 2015: The News Part Eighteen: A Case of Identified Mistakes

Wednesday 28 January 2015: The News Part Nineteen: A Minor Hiccup In Proceedings

Thursday 29 January 2015: The News Part Twenty: One Day To Save The Station

Wednesday 4 February 2015: The News Part Twenty One: Police, Secrets and a Large Dose of Confusion

Sunday 8 February 2015: The News Part Twenty Two: Once Upon a Time in The North

Monday 9 February 2015: The News Part Twenty Three: A Blanket of Chaos

Wednesday 11 February 2015: The News Part Twenty Four: Under The Blanket

Monday 16 February 2015: The News Part Twenty-Five: Desperation, a Quest and Riding on Horseback

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