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Wilford liked to find dramatic and exciting ways to disrupt and derail meetings all the time, but that was a new one. She watched him quickly get up, taking Michael out of the room. A second later, Billy got up as well, sneaking out of the door on the far side of the room so the camera didn’t see him.
“Is this your idea of a joke?” Nichola hated Blake. He was easily one of the worst people she’d ever had to deal with in the network.
“His son just threw up on him. What do you think?” she asked. She felt like she should have got up to help, since they weren’t going anywhere.
“You know what, I can’t do this right now. We’re having an emergency.” She ended the call without another word and closed her eyes to just breathe for a moment. When she opened her eyes again, Dave and Claire were still there, politely trying to act like they hadn’t just witnessed what had happened.
“I’m sorry,” Nichola said.
“It happens,” Claire said. “Do you need to go with him?”
Nichola shook his head. “No, I’m fine. We’re all here, so let’s discuss what happens going forward.”
Dave nodded, and for a moment he and Claire looked over one another’s notes. As they conferred between themselves, Billy carefully came back into the room, picking up his pace once he saw the call had ended.
“Will’s taken him down to Mount Zonah,” he said quietly. “We’re probably on our own for the next few days.”
Nichola nodded. “I figured. That’s fine. He was just here for show anyway.” Wilford never had anything to do with how his company ran. He’d all but given it to Nichola the day he started it, because he wasn’t a producer. He didn’t know anything about that part of the industry. The company was a retirement plan, and little else.
Billy sat down and nodded. “We’ll put Mandy at the helm this week. He always gets good ratings.”
“So,” Dave said, putting his notes down on the table. “It’s been enlightening. Obviously things have been bad not just in this city, but across the country for a while. We don’t usually get other groups on our side like this, so it’s been hard to make any real progress.”
“Black Light wants to expand, but with us being under CBN’s thumb, we can’t ethically do that,” Nichola said, spreading her own notes out. She hadn’t even had the chance to get to them during the meeting. “The last thing we want is for subcontracted employees of one division to be paid forty percent more than people we’ve had working with us since we set up shop here. But wages haven’t risen in over a decade, and most of our subcontracts are barely keeping their heads above water. Meanwhile, our in-house employees are starting to get hassled because we can pay them more, and do. What are we supposed to do? Not pay these people? We have interns that make more than some of your people do.”
“No, and I’m glad you care about this,” Claire said. “There are other studios in town who are under the same pressures you are, because they’re not run by robots. The more of you we get on our side, the easier it’ll be to fix this issue.”
Nichola nodded, and looked at Billy. “Where does that put you?” she asked.
“If we strike, I don’t care that I’m on both sides. I’ll strike too,” he said. “That’s why I don’t take credit with the company.”
Nichola shuffled through her papers. “We can afford three months, before it starts to get uncomfortable,” she said, looking at Black Light’s expenses. “Not that I expect anything to last this long, but six before we have to hire scabs and go back on the air.”
“If it lasts six months, there will be riots in the streets,” Dave said. “That, or we’re looking at a fundamental change to the entire industry.”
“Would that be a bad thing?” Nichola asked.
Dave shook his head. “I don’t think so. Web production’s starting to get pretty big budget. Some of our people make more money filming six episodes of trash for some kid with a skateboard and twenty million followers than they do working a full season for the networks. And the kid with the skateboard probably makes more money than you do.”
“I should buy a skateboard,” Nichola said.
Dave and Claire both laughed. “We’ll be in touch,” Claire said as the two of them stood up. “Either directly, or through Dennis.”
“I look forward to it,” Nichola said. She stood as well, shaking both their hands from across the table. She watched them leave before sitting down again.
“We’re doing the right thing, right?” she asked.
Billy nodded. “Yeah, I think so. We’ll lose our jobs for this, but if Will’s done his part, we’ll have somewhere else to go.”
Billy didn’t know yet. She hadn’t had the chance to tell him. She picked up a pen and pulled a blank sticky note from a pad on the table.
Will knows who killed Jay Norris she wrote, showing it to Billy. Billy read it, and immediately stiffened. He looked up at her, not saying a word.
After a moment, she amended her note. Blake
Billy looked wildly around the room, struggling to stay quiet. He nodded toward the giant television screen, sitting on a Windows desktop. Nichola nodded stiffly.
“I’m really hungry,” Billy said suddenly getting up. “Let’s go get some lunch.”
Nichola smiled and gathered up all her pages. “Okay,” she said sweetly. She followed Billy out of the building and to his car.
She had four missed calls by the time she noticed her phone had been buzzing at the bottom of her purse. All from Wilford. “Shit,” she hissed, immediately calling him back. He didn’t answer. “Fuck.”
“What’s wrong?” Billy asked from across the table at the little diner they’d settled at.
“Will blew up my phone and I didn’t even notice.” She stuffed it back into her purse and started looking around for someone who worked there.
“Shit,” Billy said. He pulled out his own phone. “Five missed calls.”
Nichola waved her hands wildly at a waitress across the diner, trying to convey as much urgency as she could. By the time the waitress was at their table, Billy was already thumbing out some cash from his wallet. “Boxes, please,” he said.
It didn’t take the waitress long to figure out that something was wrong. She nodded and zipped off behind the counter, coming back with two cardboard boxes for their sandwiches. Nichola and Billy quickly packaged up their barely-started lunches and rushed back out to the car.
“You think he’s at the hospital?” Nichola asked as Billy unlocked his car.
“Must be, if he’s not answering his phone,” Billy reasoned. “It’s not that far from here.”
Nichola tried to call him again, but it still rang out to voice mail. He must have been somewhere deep in the building to be without service. That wasn’t a good sign.
“Do you know his girlfriend’s number?” Billy asked.
“His what?” Nichola asked. Why was this the moment she heard this gossip for the first time? Wilford didn’t have girlfriends. He had beards and half-assed flings.
“Jess saw him out with her a couple weeks ago,” Billy said.
“Oh, he’s probably sunk it by now, then,” Nichola said. Not that it mattered anyway, because she didn’t have this person’s name, much less their phone number.
Once they got to the hospital, Billy navigated the maze of a parking lot until they spotted Wilford’s big, black car. He parked close by and barely had the car stopped before Nichola opened the door and got out. She was surprised to find Wilford sitting on a bench near the entrance, surrounded by cigarette butts on the ground, and smoking another one. She was also surprised to find him with company. A woman she’d never seen before sat right up in Wilford’s space, holding his hand in both of hers while she talked quietly. Standing awkwardly nearby was an older man, his hair mostly white, but with little hints of pink still peppered throughout. It was all entirely too much to take in.
“Will!” she said, rushing over. Wilford looked up, so dazed she wondered if he was on something again. “What’s going on? Where is he?”
Wilford shrugged helplessly and shook his head, and then pointed vaguely over his shoulder to the building. “They just took him up to surgery,” he said.
“What the fuck?” Nichola asked as Billy finally made his way over. She looked up at him, but he seemed just as surprised as she was. “Why?”
“His appendix. He’s fucking three,” Wilford said.
His girlfriend — apparently — looked up at her and smiled awkwardly. “Hi. You must be Nick. I’m Celine,” she said.
“Yeah. Hi.” Nichola still wasn’t sure what was going on. She pointed vaguely to the older man, but Celine shook her head firmly. Right. Not a topic for that moment. Nichola could take a hint.
“We came out here about fifteen minutes ago,” Celine said. “They caught it quick enough, so they can do it laparoscopically. It shouldn’t be more than another half hour.”
Well, thank god someone had been there. Nichola knew she wouldn’t have got that much out of Wilford. She nodded, taking it all in. “Good. Thank you,” she said. “Are you staying with him?”
“Yeah,” Celine said. “I’m sticking around.”
Nichola nodded again. There were so many questions, and this was not the time for any of them. “Then we’re going to go back to the studio. I’ll go up to the house later to feed the dogs. Do you want me to bring anything back?”
Wilford shook his head. Nichola hadn’t seen him so disconnected since he got shot. “All right,” she said. “Call me if anything happens. Please.”
“I will,” Celine said. She looked carefully at Wilford, but he said nothing.
“Will, where are your pills? I’ll bring those back.” Nichola asked.
Wilford started to answer, and then shook his head again. “In my drawer,” he said finally. “It’s a new one. Starts with a V or something.”
Nichola nodded. “All right.”
She and Billy lingered awkwardly for a moment before they turned back to his car. She looked up at him, her own nervousness and confusion mirrored on his face, but she waited until they were back in the car to say anything.
“Well, that was different,” she said. She sighed. “I didn’t even know that could happen that little.”
“I didn’t either,” Billy said. He started his car and pulled out of the spot. Then, he laughed, strained and awkward. “What the hell is he doing with someone so… normal?”
All her nerves and confusion burst to the surface, and Nichola found herself laughing. “She was downright pleasant. Was that even real? And who was that with them?”
Billy shook his head. “I don’t know, but he didn’t seem to want to be there.”
Nichola knew. She didn’t want to acknowledge it, but she knew. She stopped laughing. “He said his brother was dead, and that turned out to be a lie. What do you want to bet his mother’s still alive too?”
“Shit,” Billy said slowly. It was clear he knew what she meant.
Wilford had been a fucked up, nervous wreck incapable of normal human interaction since before they knew him, and he never talked about his family, beyond apparent lies that they were all dead. Now more than ever, Nichola wondered how much of the two were connected.
“Let’s go tell Mandy he’s got the show for a few weeks,” she said.
“Is this your idea of a joke?” Nichola hated Blake. He was easily one of the worst people she’d ever had to deal with in the network.
“His son just threw up on him. What do you think?” she asked. She felt like she should have got up to help, since they weren’t going anywhere.
“You know what, I can’t do this right now. We’re having an emergency.” She ended the call without another word and closed her eyes to just breathe for a moment. When she opened her eyes again, Dave and Claire were still there, politely trying to act like they hadn’t just witnessed what had happened.
“I’m sorry,” Nichola said.
“It happens,” Claire said. “Do you need to go with him?”
Nichola shook his head. “No, I’m fine. We’re all here, so let’s discuss what happens going forward.”
Dave nodded, and for a moment he and Claire looked over one another’s notes. As they conferred between themselves, Billy carefully came back into the room, picking up his pace once he saw the call had ended.
“Will’s taken him down to Mount Zonah,” he said quietly. “We’re probably on our own for the next few days.”
Nichola nodded. “I figured. That’s fine. He was just here for show anyway.” Wilford never had anything to do with how his company ran. He’d all but given it to Nichola the day he started it, because he wasn’t a producer. He didn’t know anything about that part of the industry. The company was a retirement plan, and little else.
Billy sat down and nodded. “We’ll put Mandy at the helm this week. He always gets good ratings.”
“So,” Dave said, putting his notes down on the table. “It’s been enlightening. Obviously things have been bad not just in this city, but across the country for a while. We don’t usually get other groups on our side like this, so it’s been hard to make any real progress.”
“Black Light wants to expand, but with us being under CBN’s thumb, we can’t ethically do that,” Nichola said, spreading her own notes out. She hadn’t even had the chance to get to them during the meeting. “The last thing we want is for subcontracted employees of one division to be paid forty percent more than people we’ve had working with us since we set up shop here. But wages haven’t risen in over a decade, and most of our subcontracts are barely keeping their heads above water. Meanwhile, our in-house employees are starting to get hassled because we can pay them more, and do. What are we supposed to do? Not pay these people? We have interns that make more than some of your people do.”
“No, and I’m glad you care about this,” Claire said. “There are other studios in town who are under the same pressures you are, because they’re not run by robots. The more of you we get on our side, the easier it’ll be to fix this issue.”
Nichola nodded, and looked at Billy. “Where does that put you?” she asked.
“If we strike, I don’t care that I’m on both sides. I’ll strike too,” he said. “That’s why I don’t take credit with the company.”
Nichola shuffled through her papers. “We can afford three months, before it starts to get uncomfortable,” she said, looking at Black Light’s expenses. “Not that I expect anything to last this long, but six before we have to hire scabs and go back on the air.”
“If it lasts six months, there will be riots in the streets,” Dave said. “That, or we’re looking at a fundamental change to the entire industry.”
“Would that be a bad thing?” Nichola asked.
Dave shook his head. “I don’t think so. Web production’s starting to get pretty big budget. Some of our people make more money filming six episodes of trash for some kid with a skateboard and twenty million followers than they do working a full season for the networks. And the kid with the skateboard probably makes more money than you do.”
“I should buy a skateboard,” Nichola said.
Dave and Claire both laughed. “We’ll be in touch,” Claire said as the two of them stood up. “Either directly, or through Dennis.”
“I look forward to it,” Nichola said. She stood as well, shaking both their hands from across the table. She watched them leave before sitting down again.
“We’re doing the right thing, right?” she asked.
Billy nodded. “Yeah, I think so. We’ll lose our jobs for this, but if Will’s done his part, we’ll have somewhere else to go.”
Billy didn’t know yet. She hadn’t had the chance to tell him. She picked up a pen and pulled a blank sticky note from a pad on the table.
Will knows who killed Jay Norris she wrote, showing it to Billy. Billy read it, and immediately stiffened. He looked up at her, not saying a word.
After a moment, she amended her note. Blake
Billy looked wildly around the room, struggling to stay quiet. He nodded toward the giant television screen, sitting on a Windows desktop. Nichola nodded stiffly.
“I’m really hungry,” Billy said suddenly getting up. “Let’s go get some lunch.”
Nichola smiled and gathered up all her pages. “Okay,” she said sweetly. She followed Billy out of the building and to his car.
She had four missed calls by the time she noticed her phone had been buzzing at the bottom of her purse. All from Wilford. “Shit,” she hissed, immediately calling him back. He didn’t answer. “Fuck.”
“What’s wrong?” Billy asked from across the table at the little diner they’d settled at.
“Will blew up my phone and I didn’t even notice.” She stuffed it back into her purse and started looking around for someone who worked there.
“Shit,” Billy said. He pulled out his own phone. “Five missed calls.”
Nichola waved her hands wildly at a waitress across the diner, trying to convey as much urgency as she could. By the time the waitress was at their table, Billy was already thumbing out some cash from his wallet. “Boxes, please,” he said.
It didn’t take the waitress long to figure out that something was wrong. She nodded and zipped off behind the counter, coming back with two cardboard boxes for their sandwiches. Nichola and Billy quickly packaged up their barely-started lunches and rushed back out to the car.
“You think he’s at the hospital?” Nichola asked as Billy unlocked his car.
“Must be, if he’s not answering his phone,” Billy reasoned. “It’s not that far from here.”
Nichola tried to call him again, but it still rang out to voice mail. He must have been somewhere deep in the building to be without service. That wasn’t a good sign.
“Do you know his girlfriend’s number?” Billy asked.
“His what?” Nichola asked. Why was this the moment she heard this gossip for the first time? Wilford didn’t have girlfriends. He had beards and half-assed flings.
“Jess saw him out with her a couple weeks ago,” Billy said.
“Oh, he’s probably sunk it by now, then,” Nichola said. Not that it mattered anyway, because she didn’t have this person’s name, much less their phone number.
Once they got to the hospital, Billy navigated the maze of a parking lot until they spotted Wilford’s big, black car. He parked close by and barely had the car stopped before Nichola opened the door and got out. She was surprised to find Wilford sitting on a bench near the entrance, surrounded by cigarette butts on the ground, and smoking another one. She was also surprised to find him with company. A woman she’d never seen before sat right up in Wilford’s space, holding his hand in both of hers while she talked quietly. Standing awkwardly nearby was an older man, his hair mostly white, but with little hints of pink still peppered throughout. It was all entirely too much to take in.
“Will!” she said, rushing over. Wilford looked up, so dazed she wondered if he was on something again. “What’s going on? Where is he?”
Wilford shrugged helplessly and shook his head, and then pointed vaguely over his shoulder to the building. “They just took him up to surgery,” he said.
“What the fuck?” Nichola asked as Billy finally made his way over. She looked up at him, but he seemed just as surprised as she was. “Why?”
“His appendix. He’s fucking three,” Wilford said.
His girlfriend — apparently — looked up at her and smiled awkwardly. “Hi. You must be Nick. I’m Celine,” she said.
“Yeah. Hi.” Nichola still wasn’t sure what was going on. She pointed vaguely to the older man, but Celine shook her head firmly. Right. Not a topic for that moment. Nichola could take a hint.
“We came out here about fifteen minutes ago,” Celine said. “They caught it quick enough, so they can do it laparoscopically. It shouldn’t be more than another half hour.”
Well, thank god someone had been there. Nichola knew she wouldn’t have got that much out of Wilford. She nodded, taking it all in. “Good. Thank you,” she said. “Are you staying with him?”
“Yeah,” Celine said. “I’m sticking around.”
Nichola nodded again. There were so many questions, and this was not the time for any of them. “Then we’re going to go back to the studio. I’ll go up to the house later to feed the dogs. Do you want me to bring anything back?”
Wilford shook his head. Nichola hadn’t seen him so disconnected since he got shot. “All right,” she said. “Call me if anything happens. Please.”
“I will,” Celine said. She looked carefully at Wilford, but he said nothing.
“Will, where are your pills? I’ll bring those back.” Nichola asked.
Wilford started to answer, and then shook his head again. “In my drawer,” he said finally. “It’s a new one. Starts with a V or something.”
Nichola nodded. “All right.”
She and Billy lingered awkwardly for a moment before they turned back to his car. She looked up at him, her own nervousness and confusion mirrored on his face, but she waited until they were back in the car to say anything.
“Well, that was different,” she said. She sighed. “I didn’t even know that could happen that little.”
“I didn’t either,” Billy said. He started his car and pulled out of the spot. Then, he laughed, strained and awkward. “What the hell is he doing with someone so… normal?”
All her nerves and confusion burst to the surface, and Nichola found herself laughing. “She was downright pleasant. Was that even real? And who was that with them?”
Billy shook his head. “I don’t know, but he didn’t seem to want to be there.”
Nichola knew. She didn’t want to acknowledge it, but she knew. She stopped laughing. “He said his brother was dead, and that turned out to be a lie. What do you want to bet his mother’s still alive too?”
“Shit,” Billy said slowly. It was clear he knew what she meant.
Wilford had been a fucked up, nervous wreck incapable of normal human interaction since before they knew him, and he never talked about his family, beyond apparent lies that they were all dead. Now more than ever, Nichola wondered how much of the two were connected.
“Let’s go tell Mandy he’s got the show for a few weeks,” she said.