Title:  Dead Loss

Medium:  Manuscript

Genre:  Horror/Comedy

Full length:  Twenty Chapters

Current status:  First draft complete

In the year 2018, five friends take a trip to an out of the way Belgium village to see some old friends.  What they don’t know is that 2018 marks a hundred years since the First World War ended, which seems like a good excuse for the rotting soldiers to rise from the poppy fields and feast on the living. 

The only thing is, the dead soldiers have been roaming free for the past couple of months, yet the residents of the village seem to have hardly noticed and the local police force even have plans to train the undead army to re-enact famous battles in an attempt to revive the local tourist trade.

When there’s no more room in Belgium, the dead will walk the earth.

Adam had typed the word “Belgium” into Google.  The first entry came back with a website called visitbelgium.com.  He proceeded to turn the computer off as he was looking for reasons not to visit Belgium.

Skip forward a few weeks and his failure was complete.  He found himself in Belgium and had been for many hours.  On the ferry from Dover, he had heard some know-it-all British tourist mention that you could drive across Belgium in as little as four hours.  He had been driving for six.

He had forgotten exactly what time it had got dark here as he was sure night fell faster on mainland Europe.  Now, his rented car cut through an empty road with fields on either side.  It was deserted, pretty much like the rest of the country.  It was also quiet, unlike his car.

Had he arrived here alone, he could take this seemingly endless drive a lot more than with his present travelling companion.  He instinctively looked towards where the passenger seat should be.  Only he forgot he was on the continent and that the passenger seat was on his right. 

Luckily his friend, Lennon, hadn’t noticed his error.  He was too busy playing with the little lever-thing that operates the passenger-side mirror.  That wasn’t the first incident on the trip to make Adam wish he hung around with twenty-eight-year-olds who weren’t so fascinated with pressing buttons.

“Dude, do you know what would be really freaky?” Lennon asked, breaking the silence he was so enjoying.

Adam didn’t care.

“If the car breaks down and we have to stay in some big, empty house on a hill and...”

Now Adam really didn’t care.  He forced his mind to blot out which ever plot to a bad horror movie his friend was about to quote from.  He had more pressing matters on his mind.

“Where the bloody hell are we?”

“I told you we were lost!” cried Lennon, as he taped the dashboard like a driving instructor asking a pupil to perform and emergency stop.

Adam couldn’t believe he said that out loud.  It would now open him up to no end of “I told you so” comments.  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Lennon brushing his long, unkempt hair back behind one ear.  Yes, he was smiling.  Here it comes.

“Look, trees!” said Adam, as he pointed up ahead.

He wasn’t lying.  There were trees along the road in front of them.  But of course he had only said it to prevent the volley of smugness heading his way.

“Whoa,” whispered Lennon, as the car passed along the road.

At least it had worked.  His friend gazed up out of every window he could to look at the tall trees.  Sadly, it was at this point Adam realised that this too would have its drawbacks.

During the course of their friendship, he had been forced to endure countless horror films round Lennon’s shop.  Which one was he going to claim this setting was like?

“Do you know what this place looks like?” Lennon asked.

Adam didn’t care and set his mind to “think of anything else but Lennon’s voice” mode.  He tuned out and never heard the pearl of wisdom his friend furnished him with.  However, the only thing he could think of was that he might have a point.  They had reached cliché-ville – population: stranger-hating rednecks, masked serial killers and the obligatory fork lightning to illuminate the vampire’s castle on the hill.

            The trees seemed to meet high above the car to form a naturally-occurring tunnel of death and don’t drive down this road at all costs!  It was about now Adam wished he hadn’t hit that cyclist as they drove off the ferry.  At least then both front lights would be working and he wouldn’t have pedal-marks all down one side of the car.

            “So, where are we then?” asked Lennon, the moment Adam lowered his mental guard and paid attention to him.

            “Oh, look, a sign!” cried Adam, immediately as he pointed straight ahead.

            Briefly, in the single headlight, read a wooden sign with something in Belgium written on it.  Underneath, the English translation read, You are now entering Verviers, population nine hundred and ninety-nine.

            “Adam, I thought you said I’d have to speak French when we got here?” protested Lennon, upon reading the sign.

“If you learnt how to speak English it would be a start,” he muttered.  He could just about put up with Lennon’s strong Yorkshire accent at the best of times, like when he was drunk, stoned or high.  While sober and lost, it was truly grating.  He’d lived in the Home Counties for most of his life now, why he was seemingly unable to adopt a southern accent was beyond him.

“So, are we there yet?” his irritatingly northern voice asked in the most innocent of tones.

“No we are bloody not,” he snapped, as he tried not to run over a dead rabbit in the middle of the road. “And we’re not likely to be with you keep distracting me.”

            He had shut Lennon up, but now he had to pay the price.  He looked across at his friend and could see he was now making that face – the one like a baby seal who had just been clubbed.

            That was Adam’s cue to apologise.  But then Adam hadn’t apologised to anyone in over twenty years, even when he knew he should, so there was little point in breaking a two-decade old habit now.  Lennon had known him long enough not to expect one and settled for placing his dirty trainers on the dashboard.

            It wasn’t enough that Adam was going to have to return a hire care with the remains of a cyclist down one side.  Now he was going to have to explain why the airbag had bits of the ditch where Lennon had made him stop to answer the call of nature.  Adam also hated nature.

“Adam?” asked Lennon.  He was using the most scary tone of voice he possessed – possibly to get him back for snapping – it was his quizzical one.

“Let me guess...” began Adam, trying to predict which pearl of wisdom he was about to be assaulted with. “You saw another tree that looked like your cat.  The stars are a different colour in mainland Europe.  Aliens infiltrated the download chart.  Does Batman really exist?  Any of those?”

“No actually,” he replied, trying to sound smug. “Anyway Batman’s not even a proper superhero, he’s just rich.  You know the sign back there said there were nine hundred and ninety-nine people in Verviers?”

“Yes?”

“Well now we’re in it...” Lennon continued, emphasising the word “we’re”. “Does that mean…”           

“Yes, Lennon, it does.  You’ve hit the nail on the head there.  A little man lives in the woods with a paintbrush.  His whole life consists of updating the sign whenever people come in and out of the town.”

Lennon didn’t respond.  Sarcasm normally takes time for him to digest.  In the brief lull in what couldn’t really be called a conversation, Adam looked out of the window across the desolate land.

“And by the looks of things he does even less work than you do,” he added, as he listened to Lennon resume flicking an ashtray.

            Time passed.

            Adam would have almost liked the peaceful drive, had it not been for the fact that they were ever so slightly off course.  He would not admit that they were lost until they hit another country’s border.

“We’re lost,” said Lennon out of the blue, like he had mind-reading powers.

“We are not lost,” replied Adam without actually opening his mouth.

Lennon didn’t understand ventriloquism when there was no fluffy duck puppet involved, so Adam had to continue the old fashioned way.

“Look it’s not my fault Belgians don’t believe in markings, I’ve seen more road-signs in London!” he shouted, as he heard a shuffle from the back seat, followed by a gentle thud.

            He looked round at the mound of clothes, piled so high on the back seat that he couldn’t see out of the rear view mirror – assuming there was something other than the blackness of night to see out there.  An old bomber jacked had slipped down on to the floor, revealing his other half, Steffi.

“Err, dude, eyes on the road and all that,” muttered Lennon, making it sound like there was actually something else of the road they were likely to hit. 

Adam turned back to face the road while Steffi grumbled slightly as she came round.  He looked in the rear view mirror.  She was awake now and blinking, probably wondering why she was covered in coats.  He would say Lennon did it.

She didn’t say anything, instead only pulling another coat of another, much bulkier lump next to her.

Adam thought of Lennon and his collection of horror films.  This was the point where the hero had tried to escape the deranged serial killer by driving away, only to find he was actually waiting for him in the back seat.  Adam waited for the band of old cable killers always tried to strangle the driver with to be wrapped around his neck while he fought for control of the vehicle, but it never came.

Apparently there was a deranged serial killer down every back alley in American – just one more reason they shouldn’t have come to Belgium.  Right now, he wished he had a machete-wielding nut-job behind him.  Sadly, he only had Steffi’s friend Leyla.

And they weren’t even proper friends, not like him and Lennon.  Steffi was taking one of her weight-loss classes for the insecure, when she latched on to her and gave her a sob story about being single.  Skip forward one conversation with him about setting her up with a friend of his and hey presto, there you have it, one happy double-dating holiday later and here they were.

“Adam, why are there coats on top of us?” asked Steffi, as she leant forward into the front.

            He knew she was about to speak even before she said that.  Without the coat covering her, he could smell her sweet perfume again.  Up until this trip he had always referred to that little pink bottle she continually splashes herself with as “designer napalm”.  But, upon spending a day with her friend, he was now beginning to realise just what a catch her had.

            If it was Leyla who had leant forward to speak to him, his nostrils would have been treated to a scent that was a cross between stale Red Bull and those pre-packed pasties you buy from motorway service stations.  By now, Steffi had repeated her question again.

“Because your...friend keeps snoring,” he replied, opting for his most politest of tones.

She didn’t answer.  Instead, she looked at Lennon for conformation, as if Adam’s story needed to be verified.  Lennon nodded and grimaced at the same time.  Then Leyla’s nose started making sounds like a nuclear holocaust warning system and she began looking out of the windows at the nothingness on all sides.

“It’s a bit...lonely along here isn’t it?” she said, presumably to Adam.

“Yeah, it’s like something out of a horror movie,” added Lennon, about to regale them with another story about mutant goldfish.

“Please, don’t we have enough monsters where we live?” Adam cut him off with, referring to past events from real life which actually eclipsed any slasher flick in his collection.

Steffi merely raised an eyebrow.  Was it her fault she slept through every demon invasion they’d ever thwarted?

“Are you referring to my mother again?” asked Steffi, to which Adam saw his faithful friend, Lennon, sinking lower into his seat.

“No, darling, I love your parents,” Adam lied. “I was talking about the monstrous creatures that live beneath our town – the ones we have to team up with every now and again to save the planet.”

“Oh, don’t start all this again,” she said with a sigh.

Title:  Icons

Medium:  Manuscript

Genre:  Contemporary Fiction

Full length:  Twenty-two chapters

Current status:  First draft complete

One hundred years after the First World War, conflicts are fought in a different manner.  The wars of the twenty-first century will be fought in the media rather than the trenches.

When Metropol Industries threaten to produce a documentary that will call into question the Britain’s attack on a Middle Eastern country, the government is not amused.

A war breaks out between Metropol Industries’ owner Peter Carter and Downing Street Press Secretary, Andrew Burns, each of which willing to use every trick in their media arsenals to discredit and destroy the other’s point of view.

For a studio set, it was devoid of any sparkle, or glamour.  He called himself a man, but upon entering the room, the young hopeful had never felt more like a boy.  He’d camped out for the night and queued for nine hours to get in here.  Now, the first thing that hit him about the audition room was the blackness that seemed to be on all sides of him.

Only a gold star in the epicentre of the room, emblazed with the stylised words “Chart Icon” stood out, due to a single spotlight shining down on it.  No sooner had his carefully-picked designer trainers set foot upon the star, did the room come to life.

            Lights shone from all sides, as if he’d been caught in a police raid.  Now, the whole room was illuminated and he could see the camera crew on all sides.  He did his best not to think about the amount of lenses trained on him right now and concentrate on the judges.

            There were three of them, all staring in his direction.  On the left was glamour model, Soho Star, who up until now he’d only seen gazing back at him provocatively from posters in his student digs.  On the far right was an old bloke who produced records or something – he couldn’t remember his name.  But, in between the two, sat the real reason he was here, the man in his late forties, with the overly-tanned, leathery skin, slicked back hair and deep brown eyes, namely Peter Carter: entrepreneur, owner of Metropol Industries, god lone knows how many TV shows and, most importantly, the man who was offering a record contract to the lucky contestant who won this year’s Chart Icon.

“And…” Peter began, choosing to pause for what seemed like an eternity. “Go.”

            He expected to at least be asked his name and possibly a bit about himself.  He’d long since rehearsed not only his act, but a few well-prepared witty quips about his past.  But it seemed the actuality of being here was completely different from what he’d seen on previous series.

His mouth suddenly went dry at the pivotal moment and he found himself alternating between looking at Peter’s leathery, overly made-up face and Soho’s ample cleavage.

From somewhere words croaked out of his mouth, but it wasn’t until he’d started making noises that he remembered he wasn’t supposed to be talking, but singing.  By now his hands had gone all sweaty and he’d forgotten not only his expressive hand gestures of passion, but possibly half the lyrics.

“…tragic youth was looking young and sexy!” were the last words uttered before Peter held up one hand, sat back in his throne-like chair and slicked back his shiny, black hair with the other.

“And stop,” he said, firmly, before grimacing and adding. “So…you want to be our next Chart Icon, yes?”

            He didn’t have time to answer as Peter had already turned towards Soho for her opinion.  He could only hope he wasn’t blushing as she swirled her long blonde hair around as a cameraman moved in for a close-up.

“Soho, my little angel,” Peter asked, to which she obediently fluttered her eyelash extensions in his direction. “What do you think of our friend’s performance?”

“I liked him,” she replied, giving the quivering young lad a cheeky wink, before realising that wasn’t captured on camera and repeating the action. “Is he single?”

There was an uncomfortable silence while Peter put his hand to his ear, as if listening intently.  After a few seconds, his face changed to a look of disdain and he added:

“Anyone wearing those jeans would have to be,” to which Soho burst into such hysterical laughter that for one minutes, her implants looked like they were about to explode.  Peter turned to the older man on his right, “William, how about you?  You’ve produced some of the finest tracks in Europe, so tell us…is he the next big thing in music?”

            The older man on his right was wearing a disgusting shirt that looked like someone had thrown up purple play dough all over it.  However, it did have the positive effect of distracting any sane person from his balding head and ponytail.  He scratched his dyed black moustache with a pencil and opened his mouth to speak, only for Peter to start up again.

“Perhaps he would be if you ignore the tatty clothes, bad hair and lack of personal hygiene, I’m sorry but the homeless will never be in fashion,” he said, jovially, before scowling and pointing at the door. “Next!”

            The contestant felt hollow inside and barely felt the rough grip of Peter’s personal security guard tossing him out into the hallway before the door slammed shut on him and his dreams.

“Did you see that?” Peter laughed, as he held his earpiece into place and spoke to some unseen member of the production staff. “Did you see the look on his face when I called him homeless?”

He listened to whatever reply was given and laughed heartily.

“Oh, that was a classic, yes?” he said, to the other judges, who didn’t really have the chance to answer. “We’ll use that one in a trailer - how many more lemmings out there?”

“Just under a thousand to go,” a woman with a clipboard and headset replied, after checking outside.

“Good, good,” he said to himself, rubbing his hands and then speaking into the control room. “And get me a really harsh put-down for the next one – unless she’d pretty of course – I haven’t made a grown man cry in nearly thirty contestants.  I…”

“What was wrong with that last one?” asked Soho, breaking his train of malice. “I thought he was cute.”

“My dear little poppet,” he replied, as he stretched his arm all the way round her and letting his left hand come to rest on her breast. “All you should be concerned about is just sitting there and looking lovely - leave the decision making to the experts, yes?”

“Hang on, I’m supposed to be the music producer here,” William cut in with, making Peter turn round and glare at him as his hand slid further down Soho’s top. “I do know what the next big thing in music will be – when are you going to let me pick say if one’s suitable?  If you want new talent to shine through, you need to put them at their ease first!  I notice you did however pick up on his scruffy appearance.”

“Yes I did!” he replied, gleefully, as he looked through various prompt cards. “I’ve been waiting all day to use that one.  I thought I was going to have to shelve it!”

“I’m very happy for you,” William went on, through gritted teeth. “But once again all you seemed to care about was which scripted put-down you could use on him and not whether the kid could sing or not!”

“What?  Sorry, I wasn’t listening,” replied Peter, as he removed his hand from Soho’s top.

“To me or him?” said William quietly. “Look, we’ve been here seven hours today, and this is the third day of auditions, you’ve only put through…six people – all empty-headed blonde bimbos I might add.”

“Soho, did you see the look on his face when I told him he looked like a tramp?” asked Peter, turning away from the other judge.  After she’d nodded enough times for his liking, he picked up a walkie-talkie and spoke into it. “Tanya, that last one was particularly upset, make sure the cameras track him all the way out, let the world see how dejected he really is.”

“Yes, Peter, right away,” a woman’s voice replied, immediately.

“Oh and if possible get those useless, lazy little presenters of ours to ask him for a comment, with a bit of luck he might hit one of them,” he went on, casually.”

“Yes, Peter,” she replied, slightly uneasily after a pause. “But surely you don’t mean our dedicated, high-flying, young, go-getters Ray and Ford?”

“Who else do you think I mean?” he barked, after shaking his head and sighing. “How many other useless little presenters have we got out there?”

“Peter, they’re standing right next to me,” she replied, quietly.

“Good, then you won’t have to repeat yourself!” he snapped, before turning to the camera crew. “Oh, sorry, I forgot - cut!   Go to commercials or something!”

“Yah!” exclaimed Soho, bouncing up and down in her seat, drawing Peter’s attention to her chest again. “Am I in any of them?”

While the contestants were kept waiting the camera crew moved bulky machinery around the room as various hair and make-up artists attended to Peter and Soho, but not William.

            A young woman in her early twenties with pale skin and jet black hair flitted round the room, organising the crew.  Peter took his eyes off Soho to look at his Personal Assistant, Tanya Moss.  She had a hard face that matched her attitude and although not good-looking enough to be a model, she was attractive enough to work for him.  When he saw she was looking in his direction, he immediately turned back to Soho.

“You see, my dear,” he said, loudly. “The next one that comes in I’ll say…that was about as good as a mobile phone’s ring tone - written by a four year old – next!”

            He waited for her to laugh, but she didn’t.  He scowled at her, before glancing to check that Tanya was still listening, but Soho seemed distracted.  She was staring intently at a logo on the wall some lighting engineers were adjusting.  It read: Chart Icon – Sponsored by Alconectar.

“Soho, are you listening?” he said, quietly, kicking her under the table.

“Is Alco-necktie a real word or a made up word?” she asked, slowly.

“Who knows,” Tanya cut in, as she stomped over. “All we know is that it’s the single biggest cause of liver failure in the under twelves.”

“It’s a family show,” said Peter, with a shrug, as Soho was now looking even more confused.

“And research has proved that only the under thirteens are actually taken in by programme sponsorship,” Tanya reinforced.

“That is worrying,” Peter said, half to himself. “I hope kids aren’t getting too drunk to be able to text-vote.”

“Unlikely,” Tanya, added, as she casually flicked through her clipboard. “Research has also proven that by the age of eight, the average kid could text his mate during a meteor strike.”

“Well, that’s a relief.  Thank goodness for the idiots – kids – whatever,” Peter rambled, before looking over at the colourful advert for alcohol with its cartoon tiger swigging from a bottle. “I mean, what kind of empty-headed vessel would actually be taken in by that sort of blatant in-your-face-advertising?”

“Exactly,” replied Tanya, in precisely the right simpering tone he liked. 

Peter smiled to himself, before they both realised that Soho was trying to attract the attention of one of the ten members of her entourage that could fit in the studio without getting in the way of the cameras.

“Excuse me?  Excuse me!” she yelled at one of her team. “Bring me some Alco-necks will you?  Yeah, right this minute.  And get someone to lift it to my lips.  I can’t pick up the bottle – I’ve just this minute had my nails done.”

“Well, mate…” began Ray, one of Chart Icon’s long-standing presenters to his partner, Ford. “Poor old Bobby’s rendition didn’t go down too well, eh?”

Ford jumped into shot from camera right.  The two cockney scamps were now thirty, but with their matching, brown spiky haircuts and rumoured botox injections, neither looked out of his teens.  They were standing in one of the bland corridors where line after line of young hopeful say patiently on chairs waiting to be called in.

“I know, mate,” Ford added, before jumping forward so his face took up the entire camera lens. “But don’t you at home worry, there’s plenty more where he came from!”

“You’re right about that, mate!” said Ray, as he pulled his co-host back so he could be seen as well. “Check out this lot for a start!”

            The camera panned round to show a vast hall full of youngsters.  As soon as the camera was on them, they jumped up and cheered.  Many of the best-looking young blonde girls started waving high-resolution banners declaring their love for Peter.  As soon as the camera panned back to the presenters the cheer died as abruptly as it had started.

“Who knows?” added Ford, looking from side to side over dramatically. “The next Chart Icon could be sitting right here!”

Cue another cheer which muted itself the moment Ray started speaking.

“But before we find out about them,” he began, beckoning the cameraman to follow the pair of them. “Let’s just grab a quick word with Bobby.”

            The camera tracked them down the corridor, past a whole line of crying teenagers slumped against the wall.  Eventually, they entered a gents’ toilet.

“Bobby, you in here, mate?” asked Ray, as he pushed the door open and went inside out of shot.

“Everything all right in there, mate?” Ford called in after him.

“Christ, he’s got a razor blade!” yelled Ray, out of shot, before much scuffling was heard.

“Tanya, I don’t suppose that last one actually hit Ray or Ford did he?” asked Peter, back in the studio, as he waved his P.A. over.

“No, Peter, I’m afraid not,” she replied, as he took note of how much make-up she was wearing. “In fact, I think Ray was too busy trying to take that last bloke to dinner.”

“Not again” he complained, as he sank back in his chair, so that he could get a better look down her blouse. “If that’s another one of his affairs I have to cover up…well, let’s just hope Ford doesn’t find out this time.  I guess I’ll have to start being nastier to these kids – you know - wind them up a bit more?”

“I read in our contracts that contestants aren’t allowed to hit us?” Soho chimed in, after her Personal Lip-gloss Applicator had removed the drinks straw from between her lips.

“You can read?” Tanya smirked, to which Peter couldn’t help but grin.

“Yes, actually,” she protested, while kicking away her Personal Masseur with one platform boot. “My tutor read it to me.  And he says I can now read to a sixth-grade level thank you very much.”

“Yes, yes, yes and you’re nearly ready to start joined up writing, aren’t you?” said Peter, patronisingly, before turning straight back to Tanya. “Look, don’t any of today’s lot look like they’re going to hit someone?”

“Not really, I think they’re a bit too upset for violence,” she replied, as she removed the clipboard from across her chest and pulled her shoulders down slightly, making her blouse lower at the same time.

“Oh they’ll be okay,” he muttered. “They’ll soon find another reality TV show to go on.  How many planted contestants do we have in the crowd?”

“Nearly fifty, most of them are just due to feed you a line for one of your put-downs.”

“Hmm, dull,” he replied, after pretending to think about it. “Tell one to act like some sort of bad-boy and get really angry then get him to hit Ray, no wait Ford.  Let’s see if Ray will actually bother to help his co-host-lover out this time!”

“Good one, Peter,” she replied, with a sly grin. “I’ll do that now.”

“Peter, may I have a word?” asked William, who was sitting on a smaller wooden table across the room on his own.  Peter was going to say no, but he rudely went ahead and asked anyway. “How long is this going to take?  There are nearly a thousand screaming teenagers out there waiting to come in and see us and…”

Before Peter could tell him where to go, Tanya got there first.

“If these wanabees want a recording contract, they’ll have to wait,” she snapped at him. “Mr Carter sees people in his time.  Who do you think they come here to see?  Peter’s the star of the show, not you.”

After she’d finished tearing strips off him, she turned to Peter and fluttered her eyelashes in his direction.  He nodded, approvingly, and realised that although she was a bit gothic in the way she dressed, she’d look better undressed.

“Well put, Tanya, thank you,” he said, smiling. “But let’s not forget about our little Soho here, adding glamour and refinement to the show.”

“Of course, Peter,” she purred, before turning to the cameramen and bellowing, “I said over there!  How are you supposed to get Peter’s authoritative profile when you’re shooting from way back there?”

“So, Soho,” Peter began, ignoring a further shout from William about getting the next contestant in and looking at his prompt cards. “The next one that comes in I’ll say: you can’t be a singer when you’re a minger!”

The sound of Soho’s giggle made Peter swell with pride, especially as Tanya was clearly making the cameramen’s lives miserable.  If it wasn’t for the constant whinging from that music bod he’d brought in, everything would be going perfectly.

“Look, Peter,” his buzzing voice carried across the room. “Is this show designed to find the next big thing in pop music, or just to give you an excuse to belittle kids?”

“How dare you?” exploded Peter, as he jumped up and pointed his finger accusingly at the producer bloke. “Whose show is this anyway…no wait, whose company makes this…award winning family entertainment?  And while we’re on the subject, who owns the record company and publications that promotes those tawdry, identical little numbers you keep churning out trying to pass them off as music?  In fact, why are you even here?  You’re not in the least bit attractive and you don’t even say anything constructive, let alone witty!”

“Peter, I’m not allowed to,” he protested, when his fellow judge had finally paused for breath. “You’ve got all the prompt cards, or should I say insult cards?”

            Peter merely scowled at him and looked towards the man-mountain of a security guard he kept with him at all times, Walt.

Later on, when the blood had been hosed off the carpet, Tanya showed in the next contestant.  Peter’s face lit up when he saw the pretty, young, blonde girl in knee-high boots and mini-skirt.

“Delighted to see you…” he glanced down at his card. “Joanna, but first of all I must apologise as our resident record producer Will Hutchinson was suddenly taken ill.  And if I may be so bold – you really do look every bit the chart icon.”

“Thank you, Mr Carter,” she replied, with a nervous giggle.

“Peter, please,” he corrected her as he ran his eyes up and down her legs. “My, my – what a pretty little thing you are.  Got a boyfriend Joanne?”

“Yes, we’ve been dating for three years - he’s waiting for me in the...”

“I see, off you go then,” he interrupted, as his face hardened and he sat back in his chair and folded his arms, before adding under his breath, “If you must.”

            She opened her mouth to sing and got as far as the fourth word before Peter held his hand up for her to stop.

“Enough!” he cried, before turning to Soho. “Oh well, at least William didn’t miss anything with that audition, next!”

“But…” the girl stammered.

“Next!” he yelled, before gesturing Walt over. “Get Joan out of here, will you?”

“The man said next!” his hulking bodyguard hissed in her ear, to which she turned on her heels and sprinted out of the room.

“Did you get that?” Peter laughed. “Did you see how fast she ran?  And in heels too!  Tanya, get the next one in please.”

“Yes, Peter,” his P.A. replied, flirtatiously, before mincing out.

“Peter?” Soho asked, slowly, as if she’d been thinking about this for a long time. “Why have we only let girls go through to the next round so far?”

“Oh, Soho, Soho, Soho,” he replied, before taking a deep breath. “They just have a lot more…potential.  Now you do know what the word potential means, yes?

“A building society?” she replied, uncertainly.   

“Exactly,” he laughed.

“But I thought you were going to set me up with one of the contestants?” she said, pleadingly. “I don’t have anyone to take me to next Tuesday’s film premiere.”

“We will, we will, as soon as we’ve found you a suitable contestant,” he said, not enjoying engaging her in conversation that didn’t centre around him. “We need someone who completes your…package, someone who complements your unique style, with a voice that works well with yours.”

            She didn’t reply, but lowered her head to make eye contact as he was looking below her chin again.

“Basically, Soho, we need someone who can actually sing so you don’t have to,” he said, firmly, in an attempt to shut her up, before heckled the cameramen again. “Oi, you lot.  Did I look okay in that last shot?”

They nodded immediately and he looked round the room for someone else to belittle.  He noticed that Soho’s lip was wobbling, but deliberately didn’t make eye contact.  It was only when she started sniffing again, did he turn his attention back on her.

“Oh, Soho,” he said, with a sigh and a hand on her inner thigh. “Isn’t being Europe’s biggest glamour model enough for you?  Being able to attend the finest A-list parties?  Having a string of wonderful men pursuing you?”

“I guess so,” she said, with a shrug. “But the next man you tell the press I’m going out with…can I actually meet him this time?”

“You don’t want to have all that sort of hassle,” he replied, stroking her leg. “You’ve got a career to think about, why bother dating at your age when you can be earning for me…I mean for you.  It’s far easier to just keep releasing the press releases, do a couple of photo-shoots with the guy and then move on to the next.  And besides, you’ve worked your way through most of the current celebrities; we need to find new blood.”

She looked at him sceptically, but he guessed with was because he’d carried on speaking for longer than she could keep up with.  He was thankful that he’d crushed her latest hint of independent thinking and even more relieved when he saw Tanya returning – the only problem being that she wasn’t leading in the next victim.

“Tanya, where’s the contestant?” he asked, before noticing her slightly flustered expression. “What’s going on out there?”

            “I’m sorry, Peter,” she replied, nervously. “But there are these two old women who are trying to jump the queue.  I’ve told them they can’t see you, but they won’t take no for an answer.”

“Old women?” he grinned, as he sat back and enjoyed a touch-up from a make-up artist. “Well, they do say I appeal to a wide spectrum of the population.  Did you say two women?  But we’re not auditioning the bands until Wednesday.”

“I’ve told them that, but they’re insisting on seeing you now,” she went on.

“Everyone wants a piece of me these days,” he took great pleasure in remarking to Soho, before turning back to his P.A. “Are they…nice?”

“No,” she snapped back, immediately. “They’re both far too old for you, one of them must be at least thirty.”

“Thirty?” he spluttered. “But this competition is strictly under twenty-ones only!  No one wants to see wrinkly old has-beens getting in the way of fit, toned heavenly flesh.”

“I said that, but the…slightly younger one started to get violent with me,” she whimpered, as tears started to well up in her eyes and her lower lip trembled. “Peter?”

“There, there Tanya,” he said, defiantly. “It’s going to be all right.  Peter’s here and he won’t have his prized staff harassed in this way, are there cameras out there?”

            She nodded, as she trembled.

“Perfect, we haven’t had a genuine fight yet this week,” he muttered, before sending Walt outside and looking back at Tanya. “Walt versus two desperate old slappers, this is definitely going into my show!  Send in the next contestant now, please.”

“Now, Chantelle, that’s a very pretty name,” he remarked, when Tanya had escorted the next one inside. “And may I say, it suits the rest of you.”

Before he could mention how much her boob-tube and hoop earrings complimented her toned physique, she came rushing over to the table and threw herself at him, almost sobbing.

“Oh thank you, Peter, thank you so much, I’ve waited so long to see you, I love all your shows, I thought you were so good on the last series of Chart Icon, in fact it was because of you who inspired me to start singing,” yelped, excitedly, without managing to pause for air.

“You’re through then,” remarked Soho.

Peter looked around the room confidently, making eye contact with as many of the production staff as he could, before getting down to business.

“Before we get down to business, Chantelle, are you seeing anyone right now?”

“No, I’m single,” she replied, when she stopped quivering. “I want to put everything I have into my music.”

“Really?” he said, with raised eyebrows. “In that case, why don’t you sing us a little song and if you’re a good little girl, we’ll see about getting you an autograph.”

Chantelle’s subsequent caterwauling was not stopped by the usual channels – Peter raising his hand and insulting her – but by a large thud from just outside the room.  Much to the relief of the crew, she stopped her wailing, turned and looked at the door.

“Oh don’t worry about that,” laughed Peter. “That’s just Walt taking care of things.  Now, Chantelle, that was very good, very good indeed.  I’m impressed; in fact, I think we could be looking at…”

He was about to go on when Walt returned, nursing in inflamed cheek.

“Er, everything all right, Walt,” Peter asked, as he stood up and backed off.

“She hit me, Mr Carter, she hit me in the face!” the hulking lump began to wail to which Tanya scurried to Peter’s side and started leading him further back.

“Peter, I think we should get you out of the building, this looks like trouble,” she said, taking hold of his arm with one hand and speaking into her walkie-talkie with the other. “Security, prepare the emergency exit.  Walt, you stay behind and cover our retreat.”

“They’re in!” cried Walt, as Peter was being forcibly hustled towards a concealed exit at the back of the room.

Peter glanced over his shoulder to get a look at the intruders.  Upon seeing them, he stopped in his tracks, making Tanya also jerk to an unexpected halt.  Two women had indeed jumped the line, although neither was quite as old or unattractive as his P.A. had insinuated.  The first was about thirty, short and long dark blonde hair tied back in a conservative pony tail.  She was attractive, but in Peter’s opinion, her insistence to wear glasses and dress like a legal secretary spoilt any sex appeal she might have.  Either way, he knew her only too well, it was his former Personal Assistant, Belle Warren; the one had not so much as resigned from his employment, but left his locked in a cupboard at the mercy of a pack of ungrateful cameramen.

            He recognised the other woman too.  She was younger, taller and blonde, just the way he liked them.  The only problem was that Karen Wren was also an ex employee who had lavished so much time and attention on, only for her to side with Belle and take off with a suitcase-full of his hard-earned cash. 

“Peter, how are you?” Belle asked, not particularly sincerely, as she stood on the Chart Icon star with her hands on her hips. “You’re looking good, a bit orange, but good.  Going somewhere?”

“Christ, I think I’ve broken my hand!” complained Karen, as she shook her hand and turned to a member of the production staff. “Do you have a bandage in this place?”

“Belle?” spluttered Peter, as he looked over Tanya at them. “What are you doing here?”

“I think we need to talk,” she replied, firmly.

“Sorry…” began the teenage girl whose name now completely escaped Peter’s mind. “But am I though to the next round?”

There was no shortage of private, out-of-the-way meeting rooms in the conference hall where the Chart Icon auditions were taking place.  Now, in one particularly small and nondescript room, Peter sat at a table opposite Belle.  Behind him were standing a sore Walt and a scowling Tanya.

“Well, this is nice,” remarked Belle, choosing not to succumb to Tanya’s withering glances.  Instead, she leant forward to talk to Peter directly. “When I asked to see you on your own, I did mean…”

“Peter doesn’t go anywhere unprotected, I thought you would realise why more than most,” Tanya snapped, before he could even open his mouth.

“So I see,” replied Belle, as she sat back in her chair. “And does Peter speak for himself these days?”

“Of course he does, how dare you!” Tanya cried, indignantly. “I should have you thrown out for…”

“Who by, him?” scoffed Belle, looking at the flinching Walt, “Careful, I’ll let Karen at him again.  Look, Peter, this would be a lot quicker if we were alone.”

“Are you going to let her tell you what to do?” protested Tanya, when she saw he wasn’t going to back her up. She pointed her clipboard at Belle like it was a gun and hissed, “I’ve heard about you, what you put poor Peter through, I…”

“Thank you Tanya, you two can leave us now,” he finally said, calmly.

            After several minutes of protesting from his P.A. the two of them were alone in the room together.

“Sorry, Peter, but which one’s supposed to be your bodyguard?  I know which one scares me more!” laughed Belle, as she listened to loud clumping sounds from the other side of the door.

“I tell you, those two are nothing but trouble,” Tanya complained to Walt, who appeared to be too busy holding a packet of peas on his face to listen. “They used to work for Peter a few years ago; they nearly ruined one of his reality TV shows before just disappearing.  I always hoped they were dead.  God only knows what they’re doing back here now.”

“Working for Peter actually,” replied a young woman’s voice, making Tanya look towards Walt, only to see it was coming from Karen, who was sauntering down the corridor towards them.  Upon seeing her, Walt chose that moment to request a bathroom break.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tanya replied, sharply, looking Karen up and down for signs of non-designer clothing. “Peter would never hire you.  You’re nothing but a couple of common thieves.”

“That’s strange,” she replied, also eyeing up her adversary. “How come we’ve been commissioned to make a documentary by Metropol Industries?  That is his company, sorry empire, isn’t it?”

“Oh, Belle, Belle, Belle,” Peter began, regaining his voice after losing his mouthpiece, Tanya. “I knew you wouldn’t leave me forever and one day our paths would cross again.”

“Yeah, how nice for you,” she replied, coldly. “I see you’re doing pretty well for yourself these days after that little…set-back.”

“Yes, quite,” he replied, as his smile dried up while trying to conceal a shudder. “But I don’t hold a grudge, just because you had me trapped for three days in that cupboard surrounded by the filth of the continent…”

“And how is your daughter these days?  I haven’t tripped over her in a gutter for ages.”

“Ah, now that’s where you’re wrong,” he replied, confidently. “My dear Crystal has been clean for over a year and my granddaughter is living happily with her…father.”

“At least there was a happy ending for someone,” she said, noticing how hard it was for him to say the word father. “And by the way, that so-called filth you were employing, you were treating them like slaves!”

“First of all, I cannot be held accountable for the cost-cutting decisions of one corrupt accountant working on his own, secondly we were still employing them; don’t you forget that.  Anyway, during my time in that cupboard I had a revelation.”

“If you’re going to tell me you found god, I don’t believe you.”

“Why bother worshiping a god, when you can become one,” he hissed, making his badly-tanned skin wrinkle as he smiled. “All my life Metropol has created deities for the public to worship.  Before I was happy to just sit back and play with other people’s lives taking the profit above the credit, now, all that’s changed!”

“Yes, I saw the last series of Chart Idol.  You’re quite a star these days, the person the nation loves to hate,” she replied, blandly, looking at her watch. “You’ve finally found a way to achieve more celebrity status for yourself than any of your previous puppets by doing something you enjoy – hurting people’s feelings.”

“Do I force them to stand before me?  Did you see guns on your way in?”

“No, but only because I know you get your security staff to holster them while the cameras are filming,” she replied.

“Ah, but they’re for my own protection.  I’m a big star now!” he declared, holding his hands out wide.

“Quite.  Look I’d love to stop and chat about all your latest TV shows, but I actually came here to talk about me and Karen,” she said, awkwardly, suddenly finding it harder to look him in the eye. “Believe it or not people can carry on without you.  What did you think I was here for, an autograph?”

            She ignored the fact he was now subtly sliding a signed photo back across the desk and allowing it to fall to the floor.

“Oh for crying out loud,” she spluttered. “You really thought I came back because I missed you?”

“Either that or to beg for your old job back,” he said, shuffling about on his seat.

“No.  I…Peter please be serious for a moment,” she said, exasperatedly, but the look already on his face told her he was being. “Okay, so you have absolutely no idea why I’m here?”

            Peter opened his dark eyes seemingly as wide as he could and shook his head, waiting to be enlightened.

Karen was bored.  Not bored enough to want to be with Belle and try and explain their position to his highness, but she’d infuriated Tanya enough and was looking for fresh blood to entertain her until her friend returned.

“Excuse me, yes you, where’s Peter?” a whiny, uncouth sort of voice shrieked in her direction as she entered the set where contestants stood before the judges.

“With Belle,” she replied to Europe’s most empty-headed slapper, also known as Soho Star, once the name change from Jean Dawson was approved.

“Who?” she bleated through a scrum of paid sycophants. “Oh it doesn’t matter.  Will you get him back here now?  I’ve seen this morning’s footage and the lighting’s all wrong on me, I need him to tell this lot to film me so my breasts don’t look so out of shape.”

“No,” she replied, with a grin.

“What did you just say?” hissed Soho, making her entire entourage start to back off as the rage built up in her voice. “Do you know who I am?”

“Err, aren’t you the one who gets her tits out at showbiz parties?” Karen asked, playing dumb, relishing finally getting to say that to a celebrity.

“I’m a singer!” screeched Soho, as he staff now used the camera crew and lighting technicians as human shields, “And a model!”

“What for, implants?” Karen asked, doing her best from laughing.

“These are real!” she wailed, as she clutched her humongous cleavage together with both freshly-manicured hands. “Don’t you read the papers?”

“Yeah, right,” she scoffed. “They’re only real in Peter’s publications.  If they’re out of shape it’s because your plastic surgeon was too busy cutting through layers of fake orange tan to mould them into the right shape!”

“It’s called salmon fresh actually!” she replied, pointing to her face. “I want my agent here right now!”

“Peter is your agent.”

The problem with an empire, Peter thought as he flicked through some official-looking papers opposite Belle, was that it involved too many people.  It wouldn’t be so bad if he could control everything personally, but there was always the odd time where he had to let someone else act under their own steam.  And what he saw before him was the result of such rash independent thinking.

“I must admit…” began Belle, as he grimaced at the paperwork. “We were a little bit surprised when we received funding from Metropol.  In fact, Karen only suggested we applied to you as a joke.”

“Do you really think I have time to scrutinise every single programme we put out?” he replied, as he roughly shoved the papers back in her direction. “This documentary of yours was never authorised by me.  It was one of my heads of department.  And you’re right, if I’d have known I’d never allowed it.  I can see why you applied under the name – what was it – Suburban Studios.”

“I know, I know; what’s the point of a documentary?” she asked, sarcastically. “They don’t have phone votes in them do they?  Did you never wonder what I’ve been doing for the past three years?”

“Well, I knew you were doing something involving filmmaking with what’s-her-name, Karen, but I never thought we were funding you.”

“I know our Government gets a bit defensive when someone tries to do a documentaries on them,” she added. “So we thought they may get a bit heavy-handed with a small, independent outfit like us.  That’s why we needed a parent company to take us on.  And after they hiked up your tax contributions again, we noticed you stopped openly supporting them.”

“Yes, I did stop supporting them!” he erupted, recalling the bureaucrats they imposed upon him to audit his accounts. “How dare they impose a reality TV tax on me?  After all I’ve done for them in my newspapers!  I made sure it was well known that my organisation was to go against the Government at every possible turn.”

“Look, what we’ve got here is dynamite,” she said, seriously, leaning closer to him, to which he stopped ranting and leaned over to try and look down her top. “You should be glad one of your staff has helped us get it off the ground.  Karen received that tip about Britain helping America bomb that town in Saudi Arabia, you must remember the one?  The official Government line was it was a terrorist training camp.  And they had to move in quickly to mop up.  What they didn’t mention was that no terrorists were ever found, let alone any weapons.”

“You think that they did it because of the oil?” he asked, suddenly forgetting about reality TV for a brief minute.

“We know they did!” she exclaimed, passionately, making him jump back slightly then pretend he didn’t. “The oil fields are now under American control as they’ve passed some knee-jerk law stating the occupying force is entitled to hold captured assets pending investigation.”

“Investigation?  Who by?”

“America probably and Britain no doubt,” she replied, begrudgingly. “Peter, have you actually been watching global events recently?”

“No,” he replied, blankly.

“No?” she said, surprised at his seemingly honest admission. “But you used to be glued to current affairs – mostly celebrity stories granted, but still…”

She trailed off as his head sank into his hands.  She didn’t add anything else as she wasn’t entire sure what she had said to prompt this reaction.

“And people think we celebrities have it easy,” he mumbled through his hands, before resuming looking at her again. “This is what comes from delegating.  I seem to remember now a while back I put some memo out to my employees to find ways of annoying the Government.  One of our commissioning editors must have thought he was doing the right thing by picking up your little show.”

“That’s as maybe,” she said, leaning closer. “But technically, it’s now part your show!”

“My show?” he cried, flinging his whole body back into the rear of his chair. “Oh, I see, so that’s why you’re here.  Want extra funding do we?  Well, you never know your luck – I might be in a good mood today, now I know you’re back in the fold.”

“Hey wait, I’m not on your books, I’m still freelance!  I…”

“Yes, yes, yes.  But it’s still good to have you back where you belong – with me.  So, go on then.”

“Go on what?”

“Make your pitch for extra funding,” he said, taking much pleasure from the words. “I’ll make an executive decision whether to give you any more money…well, me or Tanya.  She tells me everything I need to know.  Not that she’s a patch on you of course.”

“Oh so you’re sleeping with her.  That explains how she’s got where she has before her twenty-first birthday,” she replied, bitterly. “For a start I’m not here to beg and, secondly, did little miss ladder-climber happen to mention that the Government are threatening to slap a hefty fine on your head?”

“What?  Don’t be silly, just because I don’t openly support them, doesn’t mean I stopped donating to party funds, I…”

            His amusement at her statement was cut short as she slid the last piece of paper across the desk and he took in the figure at the bottom he now owed her majesty’s Government.

Belle could only see the back of Peter’s head, but she could guess his expression wasn’t a happy one.  She and Karen did their best to keep up with him as Tanya and Walt lead him down one backstage corridor after the next.  No one said a word and the only sound was Soho, trying to keep up with the procession while running in platform boots.

“How dare they try and fine me?” Peter started to rant again. “There’ll be some harsh words about them in tomorrow’s papers, I can tell you!”

            His tirade was immediately halted when Walt kicked open a set of double doors up ahead and they came out into the main hall.  Thousands of teenagers were still standing in a line that stretched up and down the room numerous times.  As soon as Peter was spotted, a colossal cheer erupted that almost knocked Belle and Karen back.  Peter, however, seemed completely as ease with such uproar and immediately began shaking hands with the prettiest girls and even making time to autograph one’s bra.

“Walt!” snapped Tanya, as she gestured for the meat-head to thunder into the sea of bodies and shove enough out the way for them to get through.  She clamped her hand onto Peter’s arm and began steering him away from his admirers and their bras.

“I’m sorry everyone,” he cried, pleadingly, as he clasped his hands together, apologetically. “But auditions have been…postponed.  I really am very sorry.  Please check out Metronet’s website for more information.  And don’t forget…any one of you could be the next Chart Icon!”

The collective “aww” of disappointment they had let out upon hearing the auditions had been shelved turned to a collective cheer at the promise of possible fame.

“So make sure you come back soon!” he added, before spotting a particularly nice pair of legs among the onlookers, “Especially you.”

The crowds were still screaming and praising Peter when they bundled into the back of a white, stretch limousine waiting for them outside.  Even the kids Walt had physically assaulted to speed up their exit seemed quite happy to try and ask Peter for an autograph when they’d picked themselves up from the floor.

“Is it like this wherever you go?” asked Karen, as she and Belle took the seats opposite Peter, while Walt and Tanya waited until Soho had chosen her seat before they took there’s.

“Of course,” he replied, making it sound almost like a question.

“If you’d bothered to take the time to watch Chart Idol, you’d see that the main reason people switch on is to see Peter and his hilarious put-downs,” added Tanya, harshly as Karen rooted through various pockets and cubby holes in the wall and took out a bottle of champagne. “Research has proved it you know?”

“Yes, thank you, I have seen celebrity magazines,” Karen replied, as she waited for no one to look at her before she put the bottle under her jacket. “These days he’s on more front covers than his alcoholic daughter.”

“Peter, are you going to let her speak like that about poor Crystal?” gasped Tanya, in a voice that sounded almost too shocked to be real.

“Huh?  Look, never mind about her, why wasn’t I told about the Government?” he replied, making her sit firmly back in her seat while the limousine sped away from the conference centre.

“Because this letter of theirs was only received two days ago and they haven’t contacted your press office directly, they went straight to her,” she replied, pointing at Belle, before scanning down the letter Belle had given him. “They want all activity ceased on her documentary immediately, shall I pull the plug?”

She looked at Peter and the car fell silent as they could see the pros and cons ticking over in his head.

“We can let them out here if you like?” Tanya added, nodding unsubtly in Belle and Karen’s direction.

“Hmm, tempting,” he remarked. “I really don’t need to upset the Government right now.  Not with the live final only weeks away.  Perhaps we should just take away the funding?  That way Metropol Creations wouldn’t be associated with it.”

“Good idea, Peter,” replied Tanya, immediately. “Then the fine would be down to these two!”

“I’ll go out to dinner with you,” Belle blurted out, quickly, trying not to make it sound like a question.

“What?  Belle, you’ve never taken up one of my many invitations to dinner before?” he announced, looking at her in amazement.

“Ungrateful bitch,” Tanya muttered, as Belle did her best to pout in his direction.

“Well, you know, just for a catch up,” she added, failing at the pout and opting for fluttering eyelashes.

“You know…” began Peter, as he folded his arms and opened his legs widely. “I really don’t appreciate the Government’s heavy-handed tactics.  In fact I think I’ll contact Downing Street myself and see what the PM has to say about this.”

“See?” Belle took great pleasure in smirking at Tanya. “Peter does have a backbone after all?”

“Thank you, Belle,” he replied, before thinking through what she’d just said and adding, “What?” 

“But Peter?” implored Tanya, also now beginning to flutter her eyelashes.

“No, that’s my final word,” he replied, looking away from her and holding up his hands. “I’ll hear no more on the subject until, unless anyone has anything genuinely important to say?”

“She said my implants were fake!” yelled Soho, pointing at Karen, who was trying to fit another bottle of champagne down her top.

The two skyscrapers that made up Metropol Industries’ London headquarters stood against the London skyline.  One was the source of Peter’s film and television ventures, the other housed his publishing empire.  The two black monolithic structures eclipsed all else in the Docklands area of London.  Belle had forgotten quite how big they were until she found herself back in a place where she swore she’d never return to: Peter’s penthouse office on the fiftieth floor.

            It hadn’t changed much in the three years she’d not been with Metropol.  It was ridiculously big – almost occupying the entire of the floor – with a large ceiling, multiple chandeliers and plush carpets that ran up from the floor to two of the four walls.  The other two walls were effectively window two-way mirrored windows.  From his elongated desk where the two window-walls met, he only had to turn round to see out across the capital.

“Admit it, you miss this view,” he too great pride in remarking to Belle, as she and Karen looked past his desk across the city.

“I could have been in there,” muttered Karen, who had now turned to the other tower rather than the cloud of smog over the other high buildings.

“Yes, you could!” snapped Peter, seemingly remembered the incident she left him in that cupboard. “If you’d played your cards right you could have been on the editorial team by now.  Look at Paul Moran, I put him in charge over there and he’s not much older than you.”

“I thought he was nearly forty?” interrupted Belle, before realising what she’d said and trying to ignore the glare she was now receiving from Karen. “Of course Tanya didn’t have to wait that long before rising to the top.”

“Jealous, Belle?” he sneered, before opening his mouth to continue, only to be cut off by her.

“Oh, give it a rest, Peter,” she snapped, almost sounding like Tanya for a second. “We didn’t come here to drag up the past.  We all have a common enemy now.  The Government has been hitting you pretty hard in the pocket lately, especially since you stopped backing them.”

“Don’t I know it, and I still donate hefty contributions to party funds on the quiet,” he mumbled, as he sat in his throne-like swivel chair behind his desk.

“You don’t really think he’s going to try and take on the Government do you?” Karen asked Belle, after waiting to see whether he was going to come out with anything else. 

Belle watched her former employer, as he sat in his chair deep in thought.  Behind him, the heavens opened and rain started to pelt down from black clouds and rebound off the tower’s mirrored exterior.  He didn’t notice.

Peter may not have discovered the secret to omnipotence quite yet, but he had long-since done the next best thing by hanging his portrait in any available space throughout his empire, none more so than Metropol’s main reception.

            The entrance lobby looked more at home on the set of a science fiction film, with ultra pristine white floors, curving round into the walls and even the main front desk.  Between the supermodel-like receptionist and the gargantuan chandelier high above, was a thirty foot high portrait of the man himself, every last wrinkle airbrushed out to perfection.

            The “front door” was a cross between an air lock and a security checkpoint at a major airport.  Anyone not displaying a Metropol identification badge was subjected to thorough searches from various thugs in uniforms and peaked caps.

            It was only when a lone figure came in from the torrential rain that they stopped frisking a courier and began to back off.  They couldn’t see his face – the cloak-like rain hood saw to that - but they knew who he was nonetheless.

            They continued to back off and the man glided through the reception unchallenged.

Fifty floors up, Peter had finished rereading the letter the Government had sent to Belle.  He placed it carefully on his desk and looked up, almost with sympathy in his eyes.

“It seems you’re little investigation has ruffled feathers at the highest level,” he remarked, still with curious amounts of seriousness in his voice.

“Who’s it from?” asked Tanya, as neither of the other two women seemed to dare reply, “The Prime Minister?”

“Higher,” he said, emotionlessly. “Try his Press Secretary – the man who actually runs the country.”

“Andrew Burns?” gasped Tanya, before scurrying all the way round his elongated desk to be at his side and put the piece of furniture between them and Belle.

“The very same,” confirmed Peter. “And he’s not all that impressed with you and your - how did he put it - subversive views on the defence of our foreign policies.”

“You could have gotten us slapped with a colossal fine if this documentary ever got made!” added Tanya, jabbing her finger in their direction.

“Indeed,” Peter went on, raising his eyebrows at the two women. “I may not be completely up to date with today’s anti-terror laws, but I believe anyone can be held indefinitely.”

“You what?” spluttered Karen, her disbelief masking her fear. “What can we be held on?  We’re just making a documentary…and we’ve barely started it!”

“Middle East – bombs – terrorism – you,” Peter said, slowly. “Do the maths.  Anything vaguely relating to terrorism is and you’ll be in Paddington Green faster than your heels can touch the ground.  I’d seriously consider changing your subject matter if I were you.  Have you considered how much the public like to see kittens falling over, or something?”

“I never thought I’d see the day when someone’s actually able to bully Peter Carter,” remarked Belle, after picturing a cat getting stuck inside a vase and deciding that although it was sweet, it wasn’t for her.

“Bully me?” Peter immediately, snapped, indignantly, as he tried to get up, only to be held back down by Tanya. “What are you talking about, woman?  No one pushes me around!”

            Belle raised an eyebrow as she looked at the red nails on the end of the hand holding him in his seat.  He shook it off straight away and Tanya took one step away.

“Peter, this film has to be made,” Karen added, taking a step forward to bring herself in line with Belle. “The Government has killed again in the name of oil and is now trying to weasel out of it.  That must mean something to you?”

“Of course it does,” he replied, with a blank look in his face that told them it probably meant something else to him. “Our shows are broadcast in the Middle East.  We’re doing a new show with Aljazeera TV in Tehran: twelve housemates live in a specially designed house for ten weeks, every Friday one’s voted out and beheaded.”

“I hope you’re joking,” replied Belle, before Karen could say the same.

“No,” said Tanya, on his behalf.

“Come on, Peter,” implored Belle, as she leant over his desk. “You hate the Government as much as the next tax-paying person.  You could help us here!  You know what they say – there’s nothing more dangerous than a celebrity with a cause?”

“True,” he said, rocking his head from side to side as he pictured the scene.

“And you are…one hell of a celebrity,” she said, as dramatically as she could without sounding like she was being fake.  Her words must have worked as he started to puff himself up. “I mean…look how good it looks when you send a celebrity out to the middle of Africa to look at starving kids.”

Peter opened his mouth to say something important, but Belle predicted his aversion to that scenario.

“Now, I know what you’re going to say,” she began with. “I know you’d never be seen dead in a desert surrounded by foreigners, but you have to admit that any celebrity who does sees a dramatic increase in their publicity for pulling off a stunt like that.  What I’m offering is a way of getting that kind of accolade and respect without even having to set foot in a Third World country.”

“Peter, can’t you see what she’s doing?” cried Tanya, pushing his chair backwards on its wheels so she could stand between him and them.

“Shut up,” hissed Karen, but before she could plant one on his P.A. the intercom bleeped and the dolly bird on his own personal reception informed him Andrew Burns was in the building.

“Get them out of here!” screeched Tanya, as she shook him violently by the shoulders. “You can’t be seen associating with political subversives!”

Karen had never set foot inside Metropol head office, her brief stint with the company a few years ago never permitted it.  Now she was in here, the only thing she could think of was how much it bore a resemblance to some sort of space-age haunted house in an old Scooby Doo cartoon.

            She and Belle now found themselves in a meeting room.  Only there was absolutely no way in or out as far as the naked eye could see.  Upon Tanya’s repeated wailing, they had been hustled towards a fireplace in his office that swung round to reveal a secret passageway to a meeting room, complete with executive boardroom table and stage, next door.

“I told you it was a bit suspect – Peter funding us like that,” remarked Belle, after checking round the room for listening devices and then giving up.

“Hey, we got the equipment didn’t we?” replied Karen, trying to remain upbeat in the face of jail. “Anyway, I’m sure we’ll be okay.

“You think?” asked Belle, as she felt her way round the walls for the door that had now sealed them inside.

“Sure,” added Karen, in the same cheery manner while peering closely at the eyes in the obligatory portrait of Peter, just in case there was someone staring through at them. “He always had a thing for you, right?  And…seeing as you’ve already agreed to go out to dinner with him then…well, you know, I’m sure you could find a way of getting him to get us out of it.”

            Belle looked like she was about ready to cry.

“Blah, blah, blag…pull the plug on their film,” wittered Tanya into Peter’s ear. “Blah, blah, blah…kick these two old women out.”

He wasn’t sure whether she knew he wasn’t listening or not.  Either way, he was too busy trying to think what he hated more: Andrew Burns’ backroom methods of running government or the prospect of Belle going to prison.

“Belle was one of the best of them you know,” he finally, remarked, cutting her off in the middle of whatever insult she was hurling at her right now.

“What’s so special about her?” she sneered, as she folded her arms. “What can she do that I can’t?”

“I never got to find out,” he muttered, not really meaning her to hear.

“Peter, please don’t sacrifice everything you have just because of her, she’s just a passing pha…”

“I could have had her if I wanted!” he interrupted, looked round at her aghast. “Well, I could now – I’m a celebrity!”

“But this isn’t some rival TV company we’re talking about, it’s the Government!  You could get fined, or worse!” she pleaded, getting down on her knees to one side of him. “Besides, you know what Andrew Burns is like?  He’s well…he’s not exactly normal.”

“Oh come, come,” he said, with a little laugh, while he patted her head. “He may be a little, well, different, but aside from his…condition, he’s just like the rest of us.  Besides, we go back a long way, he’ll be a pushover.  Don’t worry these Government heavies don’t scare me.”

The intercom buzzed, making them both jump.

“Oh, Christ he’s here,” muttered Peter, as he adjusted his seating position, while Tanya scurried round behind his chair.

            As he took a deep breath, heavy footsteps could be heard clumping towards the double doors at the far end of the room.  He straightened up and puffed his chest out while Tanya peered round from behind his chair’s headrest.

The footsteps stopped at the other side of the doors and they both held their breath.  After only a few eternal seconds passed, they burst open making Peter jump slightly, knocking his chair back over Tanya’s foot.

“Peter, I’ve decided I want to trademark my name,” cried Soho, as she clumped inside in possibly the highest high heels on record.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Peter gasped as he heart started to slow down again. “Not now!  Can’t this wait?”

“No, Peter, it can’t,” she snapped, putting her pink, PVC-clad gloves on her hips. “I’ve just found out people are selling T-shirts with my name on it over something called the Internet…whatever that is.”

“So?” sighed Peter, as he rolled his eyes.

“So…I’m not getting a penny out of it!  I want to trademark the name Soho and anyone that uses my word is going to have to pay me.”

“I think certain districts of London and New York may disagree,” muttered Tanya in Peter’s ear.

“Actually, I’m a global commodity,” she replied, before Peter could reply.

“Look, I’d love to sit here and have this fascinating debate with you right now,” he began, as he waved her away. “But Andrew Burns is on his way up right now.”

“Andrew Burns?” she said, quickly, nearly toppling off her heels.

“Yes.  Why?  Don’t tell me you know actually have heard of a politician?” Peter added, smugly, to which Tanya laughed obediently.

“What?  Oh, no,” she stammered, before tottering round to join Tanya behind him.

Peter had the CCTV camera feed rooted through to his office.  No one said anything as they watched the hooded man passing unopposed through one Metropol corridor after the next. 

“What do I pay those meatheads for?” he asked, rhetorically, as one security guard after the next shrivelled back as the sight of the Press Secretary.

Neither of the women replied, nor did the four burly minders he’d summoned to form a human wall in front of his desk.  Only their heavy breathing and the ticking of an antique grandfather clock could be heard as they watched footage of Andrew stepping out of the lift into the entrance lobby outside.

Finally the one of the double doors slowly creaked open, and he slithered inside, with his poncho-like rain hood leaving a trail of water across the carpet as he came closer.  He didn’t speak, even when the guards pulled rank almost preventing him from seeing Peter on the other side of the desk. 

At last he stood before him and removed his rain hood.  The guards, in their peaked caps recoiled, whether it was the sight of their guest or the thunder crashing round the tower, they didn’t know.  There merely melted away to allow him to take a seat.

He was tall, even seated he had the appearance of a slender man.  His now cloakless frame revealed an old-fashioned grey suit with didn’t really work with his colourless skin and neatly-cropped sandy hair.  His dark, hollow eyes moved from each of the two women, cowering behind Peter’s chair, to the man himself.

Peter meant to get in the first word, but his mouth had drained itself of saliva.  He made a point of raising his chin as high as humanly possibly until his mouth refilled.  Andrew merely smiled, letting the pale skin on his face stretch and crack with the expression.

“Expecting me were we, Peter?” he remarked, as the guards shuffled towards the exit and Peter did his best to hide his irritation with them. “My, my – you do look well – positively glowing with colour - all of it orange of course.”

“Life’s been good to me lately,” he replied, finally finding the courage to speak. “So, how are you, how’s the allergy?”

That remark put the score at one all.  Peter still lacked the ability to smile at his not particularly subtle jibe, but he enjoyed the minor victory none the less.  While Peter tried to remember exactly what the technical term was for being allergic to bright light, this time Andrew looked uncomfortable, but only briefly.

“I’m good, thank you,” he replied, overly politely, looking past Peter towards Tanya then on to Soho. “And how are you, ladies?”

Neither replied and both tried to jostle each other for prime position behind Peter’s chair.  This nervous display seemed to please him and he continued talking to Peter while looking at them.

“I expect the reason you haven’t seen me recently is because you seemed to have missed the last…six Government fund-raising dinners.”   

“Perhaps if every last damn one of my business ventures wasn’t taxed up to the hilt, I’d be able to attend more of them,” he snapped, as the thought of how much money he was giving this administration brought bullets back to his guns.

“Oh is that why?  I was under the impression you’d moved in front of the cameras these days?  I’ve seen your show…very good,” he lied. “Perhaps with all this money you’re making, you can reimburse Her Majesty’s Government for your last programme idea.”

“Don’t blame me,” shrugged Peter, trying to contain his glee. “A reality TV general election was a ratings winner.”

“Ratings - yes, a vote winner for us – no,” replied Andrew, firmly, before his eyes met Soho’s briefly.

“Don’t blame me if they voted for the other guys,” added Peter, still trying not to laugh. “Anyway, I thought that was all forgotten – you tax on anyone standing as an opposition MP put a stop to people standing against you.”

“Indeed,” Andrew, smiled, before pausing as if to reminisce. “But that’s in the past.  What’s concerning me right now is the documentary you’re making about my employer, you remember him, the man who runs this country?”

“I thought I was talking to him,” Peter retorted, bitterly.

“Now I can see where you’re newspaper editorials come from,” he replied, with a smile, before the expression fell off his face and he locked eye contact with Peter. “It ends here, that is all I have to say.”

His voice stunned Peter for long enough for the Press Secretary to get back to his feet and prepare for the long glide across the office to the exit.

“Why?” a woman’s voice asked, slightly uneasily. “You’re the ones who go around invading other countries to get their oil…under the slogan of regime change.”

            They turned towards what was the grand fireplace, to see it had spun a hundred and eighty degrees.  Belle was now in the office whereas Karen opted for peering round the spinning gateway.

“Ah, so there you are,” Andrew remarked, gleefully as he scanned the two women without blinking. “I’ve been looking for you and, now I’ve found you, you will accompany me.  I would like to ask you about your tendency to incite political subversion, terrorism and most importantly, put a stain on the Prime Minister’s flawless character.”

From plucking up the courage to step back into the office, Belle suddenly lost the will to speak.  “Peter?” she croaked in his direction, but Andrew was already laying into him.

“And while we’re on the subject of criticising,” he began, waving his finger at him. “Your little anti-Government rants will stop filtering through into what used to be such…newsworthy papers.”

Peter could probably survive the minor guilt-trip handing over Belle and the mouthy, blonde one to Andrew if it would save his own skin.  Throughout the creation of his empire, on some particularly rare occasions, he had found himself forced to back down here or there, but this was different. 

The days when anyone could push him around were long gone and on top of this, they were inside Metropol and his own luxury office to boot.  Angry thoughts spun round in his mind as the rage steadily build up inside him.  While his blood pressure boiled, Andrew continued, possibly even daring to think he was in control.

“If you hand them over now, we’ll say no more about it,” he went on, sounding almost as smug as the many he was talking to. “If you don’t, I’ll make things very hard for you.  Did I mention I’m about to run for Press Secretary to the European Union?  Who knows what damage a person so high up could do to you?”

And what’s that supposed to mean?  Peter thought to himself, yet somehow Andrew seemed to hear him.

“You think we tax you now?” he said, with a deliberate laugh. “Downing Street is very concerned about the effect reality TV shows are having on the electorate.  As we speak a bill is being drawn up to regulate reality TV, part of our commitment to producing more…educational programmes for the masses.  Now, don’t you wish you declared all that revenue you made from those phone lines?  And as for your two little girls, they’re coming with me.”

As Andrew grinned at Soho, Peter looked over at Belle and the other one.  Their eyes met for the briefest of moments and he read the fear in her eyes.  She staggered slightly and he vowed that no one but him was going to intimidate people under this roof.

            “No they’re not,” he declared, defiantly as he stood up, still not reaching the heights of Andrew’s languid frame. “You are.”

            He didn’t.  And Peter had to frantically beckon back the security guards who were trying to get out of the room as quickly as possible.

“Obviously I’m not,” Andrew said with a smile, as the guards looked the other way and slid out of the room. “Now, I’m taking Ms Warren and the girl…you can either profit by this, or be destroyed, it’s your choice, but I warn you not to underestimate my powers.  You must trust the leader – he’s a nice guy.”

“What kind of weak-minded fool does your spin actually work on?” sneered Peter, as Andrew held his hand out in front of him in his direction.

            “The leader is a nice guy,” nodded Soho, robotically.

“Peter, do not let celebrity go to your head, your company may be powerful, but it would not survive a direct conflict with the Government, or me.  Charges of political subversion and supporting terrorism will do no good for you overseas business deals.”

“Bring it on,” he sneered and pointed to the door.

The grandfather clock in Peter’s office changed from one minute to nine to nine.  He stood at the window with his back to it, ignoring the subsequent chimes.  He did however pay closer attention to the slight footsteps creeping their way across the carpet towards him.

“I knew you’d come,” he said, with a smile.  The footsteps sounded almost like an old friend.  Belle was just about the only P.A. who had ever worked for him who wouldn’t wear the mandatory four inch heels he requested of all his female employees under thirty.  He gave her a warm smile, which seemed to put her off her guard for some reason, but nevertheless he gestured for her to take a seat and she obeyed. “Don’t look so gloomy, you’re still a free woman.”

“Yeah, well,” she grumbled, ungraciously as she scratched her head. “Why didn’t you just hand us over?  What have you been doing in here all day?”

“What sort of employer would that make me?” he said, with a smile.

“Peter, cut the crap.  I don’t work for you any more, you merely agreed – albeit unwittingly – to fund our film.  I want to know what’s going on.”

“Oh, Belle, you had a way with the media others could only dream of – Tanya’s not a patch on you,” he remarked, leaning forward with his most charming of smiles on display. “You used to be able to spin a story like a child spins a top.”

“I’m sure Tanya’s perfectly capable of putting out fake stories about all your little starlets.”

“Oh, she’s an amateur compared to you,” he replied, waving his hand dismissively. “I’ll make a deal with you: I’ll fund your little film, but in exchange for something.  You want to know what I’ve been doing in here all day?  I’ve been preparing for war.”

“What, you want me to help you fight Andrew Burns.  You’re actually going to take on the Government head-on?” she spluttered, obviously amazed at his bravery.

“Yes!  And I want you to help me!” he added, as he bounced up and down in his chair with sheer excitement.

“Peter, I can’t!  I may have dealt with the press in my time, but this is the Government’s own press secretary, he knows, well…everything.  He doesn’t just know every trick in the book; he owns the library people like me read from!”

“Your point being?”

“Peter, I can’t stand up to this guy!  The stories I’ve spun for you revolve around, I don’t know, making celebrities look better - less orange maybe - not bringing down a superpower!”

“Ah-ha – but you’re forgetting something: you have a secret weapon with which to fight them with,” he smiled, knowingly, as he fumbled with something under the desk.  Waiting for her to predict what he was hiding, he held back from showing her, however, as the seconds passed, he noticed she was still staring at him with the same blank look. “Me!”

“You?” she spluttered, obviously overwhelmed by the sight of him holding up a copy of Time Magazine with him on the front, surrounded by adoring fans.

“Yes, me and you!  We’re going to do what we’ve always done best: put on a show.  One where the evil Government tyrants want to wage war on the peace-loving creator of family entertainment shows – me.”

“You want me to help you look good?  But you’re famous for being nasty to people!  What makes you think people are going to support you over the Government?”

“People love to hate me!” he laughed. “But people simply hate the Government.  Everyone likes to see the little guy triumph over the odds.”

“You, the little guy?” she said, with wide eyes as she stared in awe at him. “But you own half the world’s media.”

“Yes, but I’m a celebrity and that’s all that matters,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “The Government would never dream of going against a celebrity.  They need us to stand next to, in the hope that some of our kudos rubs off on them.  Besides, the Government only walk over people who can’t fight back, people without a voice – every celebrity has a voice – you ask any Irish rock star.  You will come back to work for me and continue your fascinating anti-Government documentary, and let it turn into a conflict that will be remembered throughout modern history – the fair and impartial media, taking on the corrupt and oppressive Government.”

“The Government your media empire helped to bring into power?”

“Yes!  See how they turned on one of their biggest allies?  If I’m not safe, then who is?  This conflict will boost my social standing tenfold.”

“Work for you again?” she asked, slowly, as the magnitude of the situation seemed to finally dawn on her. “Doing what exactly?”

“Anything and everything - whatever it takes!” he shouted, excitedly. “Your resources will be limitless with regards to keeping the public on my side, they already love me, it should be a doddle for someone with your PR skills.  The Government will never dare try and suppress me again once they realise just how popular I am.  You’ll be in constant contact with Paul Moran in Tower Two and I’ll make it absolutely clear, I want the level of Government criticism stepped up from a mild moaning, to absolute castigation of their political infrastructure.  Paul’s never let me down yet, he knows what to do.”

“And Karen?” she asked, looked at him over her glasses.

“Who?” he replied, too busy concentrating on Metropol’s march to war to remember such trivia like peoples’ names.

“The other one who wouldn’t sleep with you,” she replied, dryly.

“Oh her,” he muttered, recalling the ungrateful blonde floozy who hangs around her. “Yeah, you can bring her along too.  You might need someone to make the tea.  And besides, you agreed to go to dinner with me.”

Karen watched this annoying girl’s mouth open and shut in her direction.  She’d given up listening to whatever tripe was being spewed at her ages ago.  Now Tanya’s overly red lips twisted and reformed themselves while she supposedly spouted off a load of tips and pointers she’d allegedly learned during her massive eight month career at Peter’s side.

“And if a presenter of one of my shows was caught with his trousers down in a public toilet…” she continued, when Karen turned in by accident. “I’d make sure he was seen out with as many girls as possible at as many of the trendiest night-spots in London.”

It was times like this that Karen regretted not bringing her Ipod with her.  Although the small musical device would only have protected her from the P.A. from hell’s constant boasting, not her hideous perfume that Peter had no doubt bought for her.

“And…” she went on, as Karen looked at her watch and tried to listen to what was being said inside the office. “If it was a gent’s toilet then I’d put out a press release stating he was dating Soho - she’s kept enough men on the straight and narrow.  In fact the last time we used her she…”

            The doors to Peter’s office opened, banging into Karen’s head in the process.  The small amount of pain the knock caused her was a welcome break from Tanya’s jabbering and she turned away from the woman in black to see Belle sliding out of the room.

“Well, what did he say?” she asked her immediately as she shook her warmly by the shoulders.  Belle didn’t answer straight away.  In fact, it seemed to take her a couple of minutes to even realise who had spoken.  Karen ignored Tanya’s comment about poisoning Peter’s generous mind and stopped shaking her friend. “Come on, Belle, how much trouble are we in?  Are we going to jail?  Or are you actually going to sleep with him?”

Belle blinked at her and refocused her eyes.  She held up a piece of Metropol-headed paper and offered it to Karen, who took it and read it aloud.

“Things to do: Number one - choose restaurant.  Number two - pick out something to wear (preferably revealing)”.  Number three - overthrow Government,” and with that she sighed and offered it back to Belle, who, in turn, reluctantly took it back. “Do you think they’ll let us make documentaries from our cell?”

Title:  Voyeur

Medium:  Manuscript

Genre:  Contemporary Fiction

Full length:  Nineteen chapters

Current status:  First draft completed 

“Voyeur” is the most popular reality TV game show in Britain and has just started its twelfth  series.  Each week the public vote a contestant from the studio house and the program fills the tabloid press with stories for its entire run.

However what the public don’t know is that Voyeur is completely fixed and every last aspect of the so-called “reality” experience is controlled by the crew behind the scenes.

Voyeur is the story of the production teams’ struggle to ensure the show’s illusion of reality is maintained for the viewers, no matter what obstacles the contestants, the public or the press throw in their way.

“And what an opening night it’s been!” yelled cockney television presenter, Ray, to his co-host, Ford. “The twelve contestants have only been under the all-seeing gaze of Voyeur for an hour and…”

The second half of his sentence sent the production team into a spin.  Inside the control room, people checked clipboards, turned knobs and pressed handfuls of buttons on the console, making random monitors flicker and die.  The control room was comparatively small, compared to the amount of staff it housed, all of which now ran round as anarchy broke out.  Only one man remained calm in the face of such blind panic.  Clive Parkes was the oldest person in the room and now he had time to think about it, possibly the building.  He was pushing fifty and had been cleaning his small, round glasses when chaos erupted.

“What’s happening?” he asked a random girl, who happened to be flying past him at the time.  She didn’t reply.  Nor did the young man he asked, or the one after that.  Finally, he picked out Belle Warren’s among the crowd.  She was the show’s Productions Assistant and more importantly, she spoken to him – more than once.

“Belle, coo-ee!” he cried, as he got up from his swivel chair at the back of the room.  At least she looked at him, but only frowned and slammed a pile of papers in front of one of the Vision Mixers sitting at the front.

The thump of the wad of paper hitting the desk appeared to calm everyone right down.  Clive watched as one by one, bums returned to seats and slugs were taken out of the few remaining cups of coffee that weren’t littering the floor.

“Did you want something?” asked Bell, firmly, as she stood over him.

Belle was only twenty-nine, but in his opinion she carried herself as if she was an older soul.  He designer glasses and contrasting hippie-like clothing and pigtails masked her cast-iron will and determination to bring order to chaos.

“I was just wondering what was going on,” he replied, with a slight shrug. “Oh, and by the way, if there’s anyone free, could they get me a nice pot of tea and some biscuits?  I can’t seem to find any.  I don’t drink coffee – it brings me out in hives and it’s very cold in here.  Is the air conditioning on?  If it gets too cold then I…”

“Clive!” she snapped, cutting him off mid-sentence. “Look around you.  Who is the one person in this room doing absolutely nothing?”

He looked around.  The Script Supervisor was on his forth cup of coffee since the last commercial break.

“The Script Supervisor?” he asked, reasonably confident this was who she was referring to.

“No, Clive,” she replied, putting her hands on her hips while still somehow clutching a clip board in each. “I was thinking of you.”

“Me?” he protested, innocently.

“Yes, you!” she replied, in a tone that made his legs go again. “You’re supposed to be the show’s bloody Director and you don’t know a damn thing!”

He tried to protest, yet she continued before he could make a sound.

“And don’t think I didn’t hear you asking Shelley if the VT machine sold Mars Bars,” she went on. “Clive, let me ask you something – have you ever directed a reality TV show before?  No, scrub that, have you ever worked in television production before?”

He scratched his head and took the opportunity to study the yellow floral pattern on her shoes.  He wondered where you buy a pair of those and why his wife would never wear something like that.

“I’ll take that as a no then,” she said, dryly. “God, who has Peter saddled us with this time.”

“I did film my sister’s wedding?  She said I made quite a good job of it,” he said, hopefully, as he sprung up from his seat like he’d been stung by a bee. “You’re not going to tell Mr Carter, are you?  Look, I want to help, I really do!  I like it here.  You people are young and lively and full of caffeine.  You talk about really interesting things.  I want to be part of it.  Please let me help.  What was that last commotion all about?”

Belle looked at him with one eyebrow raised.  She pursed her lips together and turned back to the room to see people were back getting on with their work. 

“Okay, we’ll go over this again, right?” she said, to which he only nodded attentively. “You know it’s opening night, yeah?  This season’s ten contestants have been inside the Voyeur house now for an hour, we’re filming them live for the next eight weeks and some clown has just given Ray the wrong script to read.”

“Sorry, I didn’t notice,” Clive replied, meekly. “How could you tell?”

“He said there were twelve contestants in there.  There are only ten this year.  Number eleven got deported and twelve got a place on another of Peter’s reality TV shows.  So, we only have ten now, but don’t worry, we went to adverts until the correct script was found.”

“Are we back yet?” he asked, attentively as he peered round her at the screen.

“From a commercial break?” she asked, with a laugh that he couldn’t work out was sarcastic or not. “No way – still another four minutes to go!  Now, excuse me, I have to get some nicotine and caffeine into my system before I keel over and die quicker than contestant after they leave the show.  Productions Assistants seems to be the only people around here who don’t get assistants.”

“That’s okay, Belle,” he cried, in his most positive voice as he swung one fist through the air. “You go and put your feet up, leave things to me!”

He waited for her approval, but it never came.  She merely looked him up and down with a peculiar expression, before pushing a monitor on wheels next to his chair.

“It’s okay,” she muttered, as she adjusted the screen so he wouldn’t have to stand to watch it. “I’ve been meaning to cut down anyway.  You just sit here and watch.”

And with that she walked back to the other jittery youngsters who were monitoring the inside of the Voyeur house on over fifty monitors that surrounded the main screen on the far wall.  Clive pushed his glasses down his nose and peered down at the screen.  Ray and Ford were standing in front of the crowd waiting for the show to restart.  They didn’t look at each other and a man was moving about in the background removing anyone fat or unattractive from the front row.

“Welcome back!” one of the presenters screamed when the crowd had been purified. “Our lucky batch of contestants has been in the house for an hour and already we’ve seen two arguments, a protest sit-in, and a catfight between the girls about whose tan looks orange!”

            “That’s right mate,” the other cockney host replied. “It’s hard to believe that the twelfth series of Voyeur is already underway and we’ve already seen two tits on screen!”

Clive stopped trying to figure out which presenter was Ray and which was Ford and looked over at Belle.  She was reading something from a piece of paper into a microphone.

“Ray,” she began, firmly and in a loud clear voice. “And we’re not talking about us there folks!”

Clive looked down at the grinning presenters in the monitor she’d bestowed upon him.  The one on the left repeated her line, word for word, only louder.  Clive made a mental note that Ray must be the one on the left with the wider face.

“Cue laughter!” continued Belle, but this time neither Ray nor Ford reacted.

Instead, a barrage of guffaws erupted from the crowd all around the presenters, even though the faces directly behind them barely seemed to raise a smile.

“You crack me up, mate,” replied Ford, without looking at his partner and pointing directly to the screen. “And as usual, the best bit is that who stays, is up to you!”

            “Cue cheers – half volume,” ordered Bell, as the crowd behind the presenters appeared to go berserk for their hosts while remaining completely composed at the same time. 

As Ray and Ford did their best to calm the rapturous rabble down, Belle handed the script to someone else inside the control room and made a gesture like she was smoking.  As she made her way out, on the screen Ford went on.

“I’ll bet you at home have already started thinking about who goes at the end of the week, I know I have.  Has Lydia’s religious rants ruffled your feathers?  And what’s going on with old-man Evan and all that bling?  Or maybe Barry’s babbling has bored you to boot him out once and for all?  Who goes, is up to you!”

“Or maybe Barry’s babbling has bored you to boot him out once and for all?  Who goes, is up to you!” added Ray, to which Ford’s face dropped and the two of them only stared into the screen blankly.

            “Commercials!” screamed Belle, from outside the doorway, before re-entering the control room and stuffing a packet of cigarettes into her hip pocket.  As Clive watched the show’s logo come up on screen, she grabbed the microphone and spoke directly to the presenters. “What’s going on now?”

“He said my line again!” yelled Ray into screen. “He knows I’m the one who speaks first!  I am standing on the left, you know?”

“No you’re not!  I’m on the left!” cried Ford, indignantly, before addressing the control staff via camera. “Belle, Ray thinks he’s on the left.  Tell him I’m actually on the left.”

“He’s camera left,” she replies, with her eyes closed, before adding quietly. “God knows what Peter’s making of all this.”

“And…” Ray shouted, from outside the Voyeur house. “Did you know he took my favourite waistcoat last week?  He never even asked me!  I purposefully wrote my name on a tag and…”

            Belle switched the microphone off, muting her conversation from the two bickering presenters.  Clive watched her suppress a yawn as she blinked, rubbed her eyes and looked at her watch, before coming over to him.

            “Okay, that’s it,” she said, as she handed him the script, but kept the microphone. “If I don’t sit down and get stop thinking about text voting, crowd control and sponsorship deals then I might just insert this oh so bulbous microphone into a certain pair  of whinging divas.  I really am going for a cigarette – and some heroine is anyone’s got any.”

            A few people checked their pockets, but it appeared everyone was out.

            “Clive,” she continued, pointing at one of the monitors on the wall. “Lydia has just sat down to use the toilet.  This season, our supreme overlord Peter Carter has bestowed upon us toilet cameras – and before you ask, yes, that does mean broadcasting from inside the bowl – the last thing he said to be when I left him was: end on a ring shot.”

            “A what?” Clive queried.

            “Never mind,” she said, pitifully. “You’ll find out in about three minutes.  Once dumb and dumber have wrapped up and told the viewing public how they can waste their money on us, switch to camera nine.  And seeing as I don’t have an assistant, it looks like I’ll have to slit my own wrists.” 

The stationary cupboard was fresh out of razorblades, so Belle had to settle for nicotine.  She had her eyes closed as she leant against a wall outside the green room door for about ten minutes now.  During that time she’d smoked four whole Bensons and Hedges – tough on the lungs, but nowhere near her personal best. 

She opened her eyes and her senses started kicking in one by one.  First she realised that all this time she’d been leaning on a hard, rectangular box, possibly some sort of alarm system, but had been too tired to notice.  That didn’t bother her as much as the bitching session she was due to return to on the other side of the wall.

She stubbed her last cigarette out on the no smoking in the workplace sign.  It was one of those rare occasions where she almost liked her boss, Peter Carter.  If he hadn’t bribed enough MPs Metropol Industries might have to enforce the smoking ban.  Then she remembered how long she’d been awake in the name of this show and her usual feeling of contempt towards her boss swept back over her.  Maybe Ray or Ford would have a spare fag?  The only way to find out was show her face in the green room and try and pacify at least one of the double act.

            “You took my line – again!” was the first thing she heard upon entering. 

            She wasn’t sure whether it was Ray or Ford who said it, as not only to they look almost identical, but they also sound alike.

“Line of what, huh?” the other one came back with. “What lines have you been snorting this time?”

“Those allegations have never been proven and you know it!” the original one yelled, as he sprung to his feet and pointed a finger accusingly at the other.

Belle looked round the room for Clive.  She had purposely sent him here to baby sit them, where was he? 

“Only because Peter bought off the tabloids…” one of them went on and Belle realised they were standing the wrong way round, making telling them apart even harder. “I swear, if the press ask me once more if I’ve been to the same rehab clinic as you, I’ll…”

“Where’s Clive?” she interrupted before he could continue.  Both stared at her blankly – the way they did when no one fed them their lines. “He’s this series’ director.”

“Old bloke who can’t afford hair dye?” one said. “Wears a terrible turquoise turtleneck?”

“That would be him,” she replied, blandly. “Where is he, Ford?”

“I’m Ray!” protested the one she was looking at. “How dare you?  Do you know who I am?  I’ve been in the top fifty reality TV presenters nine years running!  Do you even have the faintest idea what it’s like out there?  Do you?  Sitting up there in your little control room, pressing your little buttons, fiddling with…medium size clipboard. Can your tiny assistant-size mind understand how hard it is out there to remember lines when people are chanting your name, asking for autographs while throwing underwear at you!?

“Sorry, sorry, I’m so sorry,” she said as soon as he ran out of breath.  She immediately put her hands in the air as if surrendering before Ford started up as well. “It’s been a long shift, you know?  I called my mum Mrs Chipfat once!  Look, please, just tell me where he is?  I am very sorry about the…you know…mix up.”

She put on her most simpering, pathetic face while she reminded herself that if in doubt, never try and use their names and get it wrong.  She added her most girlie grin to her facial expression and gradually Ray took his seat.

“I sent him on an errand,” he said, not looking at either of them. “He was getting on my nerves.”

Belle couldn’t argue with that.

            “Do you know what he asked us?” spluttered Ford, to which Belle didn’t reply in the hope he might not tell her. “Not only did he refer to us as Ford and Ray – instead of Ray and Ford, but he actually had the audacity to ask why we shouted so much into camera!”

            “He didn’t!” exclaimed Belle, holding her hands up to her mouth in mock horror.

            “He did!” cried Ray, indignantly. “We’re presenters for God’s sake, what does he expect us to do?”

            “Oh, well, never mind,” said Belle with a shrug. “Look, why are you two still here anyway?  Peter’s giving the interviews and everyone apart from a skeleton control staff are at the opening night party.  Shouldn’t you guys be there?”

            “I’m ready!” declared Ford, as he stood up hoping to go. “I’ve been ready ever since we got off set!  It’s him!”

            “I’m waiting for Clive to get back,” he muttered, shifting from foot to foot.

            Before she could ask why his presence was so important, he appeared at the doorway, puffing and more than a little out of breath.

            “Did you get it?” snapped Ray, the moment he caught sight of him.

            “What, oh, yes, of course,” he muttered, in between deep breaths, before rummaging round in his a Tesco carrier bag.

            “Well, let’s not hang around – time to go!” shouted Ray, as he appeared at Clive’s side. “Not here, give it to me outside, come on, come on, move it.”

            Belle watched as Clive looked even more flustered than usual.  Ford merely shook his head and sauntered out while the other little presenter tried to usher the director out of the room.

            “Er, excuse me,” interrupted Belle, before they could reach the door. “Clive, what exactly did our young front man ask for?”

            Ray looked like he wanted to disappear into the oblivion of a reality TV contestant once they’d left the house.  Clive merely looked confused and held up a can of fizzy drinks.

            “They were all out of Coke-a-Cola in the vending machines, I had to get Fanta,” he said, innocently.  His words made Ray’s head prick up, as he snatched the aluminium can from him.

            “Yes, that’s right, I asked for a can of…what’s this, oh, right, Fanta,” he said, quickly, while Belle only raised an eyebrow. “Good man.  You’ll go far around here.”

            “Will someone tell that short-arse to hurry up?” screamed Ford from somewhere down the corridor.  Ray immediately started yelling back at him how it was merely bad camera angles and that was the last they saw of them.

            “Clive?” Belle said, gently, as she strolled over to the older man. “By any chance, did Ray ask for some coke?”

            “Yes, he did,” he replied. “But they only had…”

            “Yeah, yeah, I heard,” she replied, with a sigh. “I better let Peter know he’s back on the white stuff.”

            By the time she looked up at him, it was obvious his attention was elsewhere.  He was craning his neck towards the door.  Ray and Ford could still be heard bickering all the way down the corridor. 

“You know, sometimes they act like they don’t like each other,” he mused, until the sound of a door slamming followed by a yelp from one of them made him jump back. “I read that they were the best of friends.  Are they like that when they’re at home together?”

            “I really don’t need this on opening night,” she said, closing her eyes and falling back into the nearest chair. “Not on opening night.  For the record, they hate each other.  They’re only friends when the cameras are on them.  Secondly, the flat they supposedly live in is owned by Metropol Industries.  Ray lives in West London and Ford lives…well, wherever Ray isn’t.  If they spend any time off camera together, one of them throws a hissy fit and threatens to quit.  And when that happens, Ray starts…powering his nose, if you know what I mean?”

Clive’s blank look told her he didn’t know what she meant.

“Didn’t you get Peter’s email about keeping them apart?” she added, exasperatedly.

“No.  I er, forgot the password to my mailbox,” he replied, meekly.

Belle only looked at him, before using the muscles in her body one at a time to get back up from her chair.

“Let’s just get back to the control room,” she said, robotically. “Do you remember where that is?”

            “I thought you were taking a break?” he asked, as she walked by him.

            His question was met with near maniacal laughter from Belle.

            “I still have to stop security from beating up a couple of rejected applicants after they tried to beak into the house.  Not to mention the housemates are already complaining about the lack of ashtrays in the hot-tub and I’m expecting a summons from Peter any minute with what I did wrong with the opening episode.  Oh, and on top of that I’ve been working nearly forty-eight hours without a break and all Peter says is he’ll get someone in before the end of the season – and that’s eight weeks away.”

“I’m sorry,” he replied, not knowing what else to say.

“Let’s get back to the control tomb…sorry, room – slip of the tongue,” she said, as she ambled out into the corridor.

Clive scurried after her and the two of them walked down the dimly lit corridors of the backstage area of the studio that surrounded the house.  The whole of the studio appeared to be made of the dullest, greyest, blandest breeze blocks – a far cry from the glitz and glamour in front of the cameras.  The only real light was from the many television sets hung overhead, designed to make sure staff were constantly aware of the housemates’ antics.  He stopped briefly by one and his mouth dropped open.

“Oh, my goodness, that’s disgusting,” he said, when he finally regained control of his jaw. 

“That’s our contestants for you,” Belle said, expressionlessly, as she rejoined him and looked up at the television set. “Take TV cameras and a few photographers, add alcohol and the prospect of getting your face all over the newspapers, and that’s the sort of behaviour we’ve got to put up with for the next eight weeks.”

Clive didn’t answer.  His eyes were still firmly fixed on the screen.  She waved her hand up and down in front of his face to snap him out of it.

“But, but…” he stammered, slowly. “How can that even fit up her…”

“Through sheer desire to be noticed, that’s how,” she added, quickly. “Did you know what the most popular response was when a survey asked children under ten-years-old what they wanted to be when they grow up?”

            “No; what?”

“Famous,” she replies, sadly. “They didn’t say how.  Anyway, come on, let’s go and see if we can grant a few of them their wish.”

Belle didn’t have the energy to hurry back to the control room, let alone run.  She placed her body on autopilot and let it guide her through the network of corridors and stairwells that ran all around the studio house where the contestants were to spend the next two months.

She quickly discovered that it was just as well she could find her way around the building, even in the dark, as Clive spent most of the journey mentioning how he’d never seen this area before.  She tuned out and quickly realised that it didn’t matter whether she answered or not, it didn’t seem to stem the flow of words from his mouth.

They were only two turnings away from the control room when a different voice broke through Clive’s ramblings.

“Clive, Peter says you’re to report to edit suite nine, right away.  The VT operators are changing shifts,” a woman’s voice chirped, from behind them. 

Belle switched autopilot off as she wondered who this was.  Upon turning a hundred and eighty degrees, she was confronted by someone only Peter would hire.  A pretty young blonde girl stood before them wearing a suit that wouldn’t be out of place in an Ann Summers party.  This was just how he liked them.  She couldn’t be out of her teens yet and judging by the inane grin plastered across her face, she must be new.  Belle couldn’t remember the last time someone who’d been there longer than a series had let a genuine smile creep across their face.

“Oh, okay then,” Clive replied, obediently, while Belle looked her up and down.

“And Belle, Peter wants to see you in his office – something about the figures,” the girl added in Belle’s direction, before smiling sweetly, turning then walking off with a spring in her step.

            The girl already was already halfway down the corridor before Belle could summon the evil look to her face.  Before she could shout after her, her pager began bleeping. 

“So he does,” she said under her breath, as she read the words: Peter Office on the tiny screen, before she realised Clive was getting away from her. “Er, Clive, where are you going?”

            “She said I had to get back to edit suite eight,” he replied, with a shrug.

“She?” spluttered Belle, as she gripped her clipboard tightly. “I’ve never seen that girl before in my life!  Who was that anyway?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, after thinking hard. “But she said I’d better get to edit suite four, so I guess I really should.”

“Yeah, you do that,” she replied, sighing and closing her eyes. “But you might want to try going to edit suite nine – seeing as that was the one Little Miss Sunshine told you to.”

“Ah, will do,” he said, obligingly, to which she nodded and turned away, “Oh, Belle, one more thing.”

Her legs were too tired to turn all the way round to face him, but the fact that she managed to stop moving allowed him to continue.

“Where are the edit suites?” he asked, pleadingly. 

There was black, black and black.  But the worst, and possibly most mysterious form of the colour, was the interior of Peter Carter’s on-site office.  Belle found herself outside its giant set of double doors and wondered why he bothered with an office when a hollowed out volcano would suit him so much more.  She didn’t bother knocking as she knew the CCTV camera above her head had long since alerted her employer to her presence.  He could now buzz her in any time he liked.  Yet, as with the countless previous times she’d stood here, she was forced to wait.

            Peter Carter: a man with the scruples of Adolf Hitler, but without the facial hair.  He owned the two skyscrapers in the midst of the London skyline, Metropol Industries head office.  Some said he lived there, apart from the eight weeks of the year when he relocated to this temporary office on the top floor of the studios surrounding the Voyeur house.  Now, he would stay here, glued to the multiple television monitors inside, dictating the course of events for this series.

            The door’s locking mechanism clicked allowing her inside.  Welcome to the blackness.  In all the times she’d set foot in here, she had never quite figured out how big the room was.  There were no windows, only a black, shiny marble desk a few feet ahead of her.  There, in a ridiculously oversize executive swivel chair, sat Peter.  The only light coming from the monitors behind him that displayed the events of the house.  As soon as the door had closed behind her, she stood before him, alone in the blackness.

            “You called?” she said, confidently, while the light reflected of his slicked back hair turning him into more silhouette than man. “I didn’t think you’d still be here, shouldn’t you be at the after-show party.”

He didn’t answer, but she was used to this.  He would in his own time.  As he sat back in his leather chair, he adjusted a couple of the many gold rings on his fingers, so the light bounced off into her eyes.

“Well, here we are again,” she blathered, merely to kill the dead air, “Another season of Voyeur, eh?  Our paths cross once more – or should I say you crush my path with a steamroller.”

Her vague attempt at humour, especially humour displaying his power and magnitude, should have got him talking, but he remained tight-lipped.  Belle began to wonder what she’d missed.  Dose he already know Ray is back on class A drugs?

“Is there a problem, Peter?” she asked, firmly enough to suppress the quiver in her voice. “It all seemed to go pretty well.  All contestants accounted for and routinely booed as they entered the house.  Ray and Ford did their usual drivel.”

“Precisely!” he boomed, as he sat forward with a grin plastered from ear to ear.

Belle allowed herself to feel slightly more at ease and tried not to stare at how the overly-friendly leer made his leathery, wrinkly.

“There isn’t a problem because tonight’s show’s ratings are already in and we’re up ten percent on last year.  If the ratings are up, then we’re happy, if we’re happy, then our sponsors are happy,” he rambled, “It’s so simple even one of our contestants could understand it!”

“And what do you think of the contestants?” she asked, keeping the talk upbeat. “Are they a suitable enough mix of mindless, exhibitionist, wanabees?”

“Perfect,” he said, with the same grin on his face, leaving Belle to wonder whether his botox injections had gone wrong again.

“Great,” she said, with a slight nod. “And what ingenious new ways have you come up to hurt people and destroy their lives this year?”

Peter made a noise like a low hum of delight and glee and rubbed his hands together.

“Yes, I never knew sadomasochism was so popular until I started recruiting contestants,” she mused, which got a laugh out of him. “So, you’re not just going to send them straight to presenting cable TV shows on the adult channel?”

“Oh, they’ll at least get a supermarket opening out of their airtime,” he mused, smiling and sitting back in his chair again.  She had planned that last line carefully.  She knew he liked to be reminded that he was better than so-called lower-class celebrities at every opportunity. “Plus I can probably get a fitness video out of a few of them.”

“Don’t worry,” she said, reassuringly. “You’ll own their soul for many years to come.”

“They signed the contract,” he said, confidently. “But I hardly think they’ll be much threat to Ray and Ford’s stranglehold of…whatever it is they do – oh yes that’s it, reading out loud.  Anyway, could you take a letter to Bill Gates, please?”

Belle obediently got her pen and paper reader.

“Dear Bill,” he began. “You’re a knob.  Yours sincerely, Peter Carter.”

“Still having your little feud I see,” she said, not even bothering to write, but he didn’t answer. “You did start it!  Perhaps you shouldn’t have called Microsoft a backwater operation run out of someone’s garage?”

            “Just send the letter, Belle,” he replied, his tone beginning to lose its friendliness.

            She nodded and waited.  After counting to five, slowly, she hoped that was all he wanted.  Three more long seconds passed and her shoulders relaxed as she realised her assumption was right.  He looked at her and his eyebrows raised slightly.  She was probably going to regret asking this, but she couldn’t help it.

            “Where exactly did you dig Clive up from?”

“Who?”

It had taken Peter three series to stop referring to Belle as “Barb”.  He wasn’t great remembering names of men, or women he hadn’t slept with yet.  Belle may have sold her soul to Metropol years ago, but she still felt righteous in never having to lie down to climb up the ladder.  A brief explanation of Clive later and Peter was still not particularly the wiser.

“Never mind that now,” he said, dismissively. “Now the opening night’s out the way, Ray and Ford have nothing to do until the first eviction night.  Put out a press release saying they’re attending…I know, the launch party for the DVD of last season’s Voyeur!”

“Yes, Peter,” she replied, automatically. “And I don’t suppose any of last year’s contestants are going to be attending?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he smirked. “Those losers have had their fifteen minutes – the public will be sick of the sight of them by now!  No, this is about Ray and Ford.  I want the tabloids to see how much they actually like each other. And they’re only there for the evening - understand?  I don’t want those two staying overnight at our expense - Ray and his damn freebies.”

Belle shuddered at the recollection.  That was the first and last time she left them together in a hotel suite overnight.  At least the press didn’t get wind of it and they were let off with a warning from the hotel manager.  It all turned out okay as he was easily bought off with a few complimentary tickets to eviction night and Ford got to keep the bed. 

            Peter continued to rant about the astronomical wages he was forced to pay his presenters.

            “…I’m halfway tempted to replace the lot of them with some ex Voyeur contestants,” he grumbled, while Belle slowly tuned back in. “Let’s see how much they like being replaced by fifteen-minuters!”

“Yes, but the trouble is most people couldn’t name a reality TV star six weeks after they leave the show,” she sighed. “At least with Ray and Ford you get a fifty percent chance at getting their name right.”

“I don’t see what’s so difficult about remembering their names,” protested Peter, as he shook his head. “Ray stands on the left during opening and eviction nights, while Ford is that side only on Voyeur: Uncovered, Voyeur: Exposed and Voyeur: Plus.”

“You missed off Voyeur: Elite,” she added, blandly as she looked at her watch.

“Oh, that reminds me,” he said quickly, suddenly perking up. “I’ve come up with a new idea for a show!”

“Voyeur: Sugar Free?” she asked, trying not to sound as patronising as she would have liked.  He ignored her, or merely didn’t care.

“Classic Voyeur!” he exclaimed, proudly, before going on to explain the ingenious concept behind throwing together highlights from past series and trotting them out as a new show.

“Mmm,” was all the enthusiasm she could muster when he’d finally finished his sales pitch. “Just what the world needs – more reality TV.”

“Oh come now, Bell,” he scoffed, as if sharing the joke. “You know as well as I do that reality TV is a more accurate representation of today’s society than we’ve ever had.  Look how many people applied to be on the show?  We had to get riot police to hold them back.”

“Yeah, but what they fail to realise is that if the high point of your life is being on the telly for eight weeks, then the next thirty to forty years are going to seem pretty sad in comparison,” she replied, blandly.

“Blame God,”

“Why, has he threatened to pull out his sponsorship deal?”

“No,” he replied, slightly unsure. “In fact, if anyone should be sponsoring us, it should be him!  He needs to seriously improve his marketing campaign.  People have stopped believing in rewards after death and everlasting life – that’s if they ever believed in it in the first place - they want their rewards now.  Being on television and therefore becoming a celebrity gives them that feeling.  Besides, reality TV is part of the great British tradition of entertainment.”

“Yeah, I know, people used to enjoy gawping at the patients in the lunatic asylum,” said Belle, suppressing the yawn. “Take the Elephant Man for example…”

            “I would as well!” he replied, excitedly. “It’s a shame we can’t we get him for the next season - he’d have definitely made the final.  Just think of the range of cosmetics he could have shifted afterwards!”

“I doubt John Merrick’s agent would allow it,” she replied, unable to stifle the yawn that followed.  Judging by the next segment of Peter’s rant, he saw.

            “You know what your problem is, Belle,” he said, sitting back in his chair, so his face disappeared into the blackness that surrounded him. “You know why you’re still a PA after all those years working for me?”

“I won’t sleep with you,” she said, blandly, but leaving it at that.  Sometimes she thought the only reason she wasn’t busted down to janitor around here was that he thought of her as a challenge.  The occasionally verbal slap, if delivered correctly, actually seemed to endear her to him.  She could only imagine it was because no one else around here seemed to dare.

“That goes without saying,” he said, from somewhere in the darkness.  She could tell he was smiling when he said it and pictured where his eyes were looking right now, “Your choice, not mine.  If you’re happy to let the youth of today overtake you then that’s your business.  The offer is already there.”

This time it was Belle’s eyes that wandered to just slightly below his desk and she shuddered at the thought of the amount of young hopefuls that had knelt down there.  She made sure her disgust was not too visible and contorted her face into her best and most flirtatious smile.  Sadly, the look was so hard to pull off it didn’t allow her to actually say anything, allowing him to go on.

“Did I mention you’re looking older since last season - thirty-five going on sixty-five!”

She let him have that point unanswered.  The fact he has detailed files on all his employees and he still can’t get her age right went some way to vindicate her.  Plus he wasn’t on the guest list for her thirtieth birthday party next year.

“Your problem is that you lack vision,” he went on, now openly pleased with himself at his insult. “That’s why I’m behind this magnificent desk.  The glorious public deserve a show to remember.  You just stick to dealing with the press and leave the thinking up to me…oh, yeah, and the public of course.”

A little fantasy quickly flashed though her mind: dealing with the press.  If only it was that simple, she wouldn’t have to write the scripts, pacify trumped up contestants, manage the lighting rigs, lie to everyone from the press to the government on his behalf and even bring him coffee and cocaine.  For the second her had run out of breath, she imagined how easy this job would be just dealing with the press.  However, her boss seemed to have reserve lungs when it came to his speeches and the next chapter shunted her mind back into the present.

“We’re the ones who make the decisions.  That’s the beauty of Voyeur!  It’s about real people and real lives.  It’s about us opening a window into the very human existence and quenching the masses’ thirst for gossip.  It gives them a chance to have a little control in their lives.”

“Yes, Peter,” she said, solemnly. “You’re so right.  And on that note, have you decided who is being evicted this Friday?”

“Oh, yes, the old one, what’s his name - Evan,” he replied, immediately. “I couldn’t stand him the moment I set eyes on him.  He’s only been in there a couple of hours and he’s boring me already with all that jewellery.  Tell Karen to let the writer know I want him out.”

“Karen?  Who’s Karen?” Belle blurted out, before the image of that annoyingly perky young blonde popped into her mind, followed by an equally bitter image of her on Peter’s lap getting a promotion. 

“Oh, my god, what’s happened?” cried Clive, as he recoiled away from the console in the control room.

            None of the vision mixers replied, but one merely flicked a switch near where he had been sitting to bring monitor nineteen back online.

            “I didn’t do that, did I?” he asked, hoping no one would say yes.

            At least four people said yes at once.

“Clive, have you seen the writer?” asked the one called Karen, as she bounded back into the room.  He had asked her what her name was three times now, but each time she found something urgent to do.  She appeared to be in charge and had somehow managed to take the production notes out of his hands in the last three seconds. “I need to speak to him urgently.”

He found himself standing before her.  He was certain she was standing closer that people normally stand to others.  He was pretty certain his wife hadn’t been this near to him since nineteen-ninety-two and that was only because he fainted on the London Underground and she had to carry him out.

His collar seemed to tighten around his neck all by itself and he was certain someone had just turned up the thermostat in the room again.  She was so close to him, he couldn’t see her bare legs in what the youth of today appear to call a skirt.  Finally, she started to become blurry as she waited for his reply.  Then he realised his glasses were beginning to steam up and he’d forgotten what she’d asked him in the first place.

“You know; the guy who writes the dialogue?” she reiterated, as she tried to see through his lenses and ended up fanning his face with the production notes.

“But…how can you have a writer when the show’s supposed to be reality?” he replied, after more than one false start.

“Oh, you know, the guy who splices together the contestants’ dialogue so they say what Peter wants them to say?” she elaborated.

“The editor?”

“Editor – writer – whatever,” she muttered. “Where is he?”

“The edit suite, why?” replied Clive, confidently, as he had heard a runner saying he was going to see the editor there a little while ago.

“Because Peter wants footage used that shows Evan sleeping all the time and generally being a loner,” she replied, with a shrug.

“Why Evan?” asked Clive, recalling the quietest of the housemates. “He seemed like a nice enough chap to me?”

“Yeah, but nice chaps don’t increase audience figures,” she replied, with a laugh. “Apparently he’s boring.  I don’t know, maybe because he wears more jewellery than Peter does!  Anyway, I have to go and…”

            She was in mid turn towards the door when she almost crashed into someone standing directly behind her.

“Oh, hi Bell,” she said, cheerily, when she’d taken a couple of steps backwards and taken stock of the figure standing with her hands on her hips eyeballing her. “Did you go and see Peter in the end?”

“Yes, I did,” she replied, slowly as she carefully removed the production notes from her hand. “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

Clive’s glasses had demisted and he was able to see Belle walking purposefully towards Karen, forcing her back against one of the walls of computer equipment.

“Oh, sorry,” she replied, guiltily. “I’m Karen, Karen Wren.  My friends call me Kaz.”

“Pleased to meet you, Karen,” Belle replied through her teeth, while somehow smiling at the same time. “And have you told Clive – oh, he’s the show’s director by the way – who exactly you are and what your designated position is within these walls?”

By now Belle’s face was only inches away from Karen’s and Clive had to wonder whether everyone in television-land participated in conversations so close to one another.

“I…er…I really had better find the writer…er…editor – nice to meet you Belle,” Karen stammered, as she tried to find a way past her inquisitor.

            Belle put one arm out, casually leaning on a console, but in doing so, trapped Karen where she was.  The young girl looked for an alternative means of escape, but couldn’t see one.  Finally, Belle let out a long yawn and, in doing so, removed her arm in the process.  Karen saw her chance and ducked out towards the door, respectfully saying goodbye to her former captor before vanishing.  Belle merely watched her go with a smile of satisfaction on her face.

            “So, er, who was that again?” asked Clive, as he sided up to Belle.

“The work experience girl,” she replied, as she shook her head. “But don’t worry she’ll make management by the end of the series.”

“Work experience?  Do they have work experience placements here?” he asked, as he wiped his glasses on his pin-striped waistcoat.

“No, not officially,” she said with a sigh still keeping her eyes on the open doorway. “But every now and again Peter bumps into some dizzy teenager in a club and says he’ll make her his apprentice.”

“Lucky girl,” he said, almost wistfully, making Belle pause and frown.

“Be careful, Clive,” she said, firmly. “He used to offer the job of apprentice to schoolgirls – but the subsequent threats of court cases make him stick to the colleges and universities now.  When I say dizzy teenager, I mean they’re at least legal now and normally pretty, blonde and with legs that don’t have to support their ultra-fit bodies for a forty-eight hour shift.  Then he ends up giving them a leg up in the industry…or leg-over if he has his way.”

“Isn’t he worried that - you know - she might talk to the press or her chums about what goes on here?” he asked, still trying to clean his glasses.

Belle laughed and continued to do so for quite some time.  In the end, Clive started laughing too, but that seemed to stop her and answer properly.

“Not if she’s got any sense,” she exclaimed, as she wiped a tear from under her own designer frames. “They’re normally dizzy, but stupid won’t be a tag I’d apply to them.  They all know not to bite the hand, so to speak.  Besides, she’ll be as tightly contracted to silence as the rest of us.  Look, I’ll give you a tip.  From time to time we all feel like lifting the lid on what goes on around her, but then we think of the wages we’re being paid to do this and the colossal mortgages we all have.  Clive, do you have a colossal mortgage?”

Clive’s knees went weak at the m-word.

“Seeing as you’ve turned white at the mention, I’ll take that as a yes,” she said, nodding. “Just evict who we’re told each week and we can settle up with Lucifer when we die, got it?  Good.  Now, it looks like Evan’s this week’s zombie – unless Peter changes his mind and chooses Hannah.”

“Sorry - zombie?”

“Yeah, it’s what we call the walking dead of the house,” she replied, knowingly. “If Peter labels you boring, your days are well and truly numbered.”

“But how can he reach decisions like that so quickly?  Just because someone doesn’t dance around the garden naked doesn’t make them dull, it just means…”

Clive’s protests were drowned out by cheers coming up from some of the production staff.  They both turned to look at the monitor.

“Wah-hey!” yelled a male contestant’s voice from inside the house. “Fern’s stripping off in the garden again – water fight!”

Clive felt Belle pat him gently on the back as she whispered in his ear.

“See, Evan’s up against some pretty stiff competition in there.” 

It was one minute to midnight when Belle’s pager went off and she was re-summoned to Peter’s office.  Her shift had officially ended at eleven.  But that was two days ago and she was seriously considering moving her wardrobe next to that couch in the staff room.

Once outside the door, she was made to wait for nearly two minutes before he allowed her inside.  This was not a good sign.

            “Under no circumstances are you to evict any ethnic contestants,” barked Peter from his oversize, leather throne. “That could be perceived as racist.”

“Racial equality board been on your back again?” she asked quietly, not expecting to get a response.  She didn’t.

“Oh, that goes for Jason too - he’s the gay one - his type always end up with a huge following of young girls and with a bit of luck his own chat-show.  And Archie – that’s the posh one – has to be hated for being from money.”

“Peter, I’ve been doing this job long enough,” she said, with a sigh. “I know which demographics to keep in the house.  I thought you wanted to see me about something important!”

“I do!” he cried, overly offended. “Ray and Ford!  I’ve been reviewing the opening night links.  They were all over the place!  Why can’t we get them an…”

“I’ve told you before!” she cut him off with, not only daring to interrupt, but also with a raised voice.  He was stunned, so she used this to her advantage and continued before he could sack her on the spot. “We can’t just get them an autocue because neither of them can read past the level of a ten-year-old!  They’re TV presenters - remember?  Anyway, look, it really doesn’t matter.  They grin and shout into the camera – people don’t expect anything else.  One brain, two bodies, that’s how people see them.”

“No brains more like,” he muttered. “So, the writer knows the gay and ethnic ones mustn’t be portrayed unfavourably?”

“Yes, I would imagine so,” she said, trying to show any more impatience, but at the same time relieved he’d let her interruption slide. “Oh and while we’re on the subject of staff, I see you’ve taken on another work experience girl?  Another blonde one.”

“Oh, yes, what’s her name?”

His lack of knowledge regarding her name made Belle’s eyebrows shoot up as she realised he hadn’t slept with her yet.  Normally, that’s part of the initial interview.  She reminded him of her name and he continued while rubbing his hands together gleefully.

“Yes I’m predicting big things for Karen,” he said, rubbing his hands together so much, it made Belle wonder whether he had just washed them without her noticing.  “Why, not jealous are we?”

“No, Peter – just tired,” she said, with a carefully constructed gentle smile.

“Well, you know the offer’s always there – if you play your cards right,” he said, as he sat back in his chair and gazed skywards. “But in the meantime, just make sure the contestants I’ve chosen as hate figures are suitably portrayed, yes?”

“Yes, Peter,” she replied, with added cheeriness in her voice. 

When he re-established eye contact with her, she made sure she was still grinning inanely.  She knew her happy demeanour would annoy him more and with a bit of luck, he’d send her home for the night.  She waited for him to speak, but to her disappointment, the lull in conversation meant the housemates could be heard via the many monitors behind him.

“Oh, wow, like, Archie is so hot!” a female contestant chirped. “You know what I mean?”

“What, what was that?” spluttered Peter, nearly getting whiplash as his head jerked round a hundred and eighty degrees like an owl’s. “That had better not have gone out live!  That was that about Archie – the posh one!”

            “Looks like Miki must have taken a shine to him,” mused Belle, as she took the opportunity to close her eyes while his were on the monitors.

“No she hasn’t!” he declared. “I’ve designated Archie the posh one!  Posh people can’t be perceived as nice!  Remember, rich people are bad!”

“Peter, you own most of the European media,” she reminded him, making him stop and remember everything he owned.  A smile crept across his face, but she thought that a good mood would keep her here even longer than a crisis. “And anyway I hardly think one comment will stop him becoming a hate figure when you evict him.”

“Rich and posh – that’s what he is,” he added, after losing track of his empire. “Research has proved time and time again that the public do not take kindly to people they perceive as better than them.  Archie is not to get favourable coverage, understand?”

“Yes, Peter,” she replied, obediently. “I think the writer was probably trying to portray some sort of sexual chemistry between the contestants, you know – to hook the viewers with a possible romance and all that?”

“Archie will not be having any romance in there,” Peter stated, firmly, with one hand on the phone as if he might even do it himself.  Then, on considering the option, removed his hand and leaned forward to Belle. “Remind the writer of that little fact for me, will you?  Let him know his type are ten a penny.”

“Yes, Peter,” she said, before changing her obedient tone to pleading and slightly pathetic. “Look, I’ve been on my feet for almost two days now.  I think it’s fair to say my shift has well and truly ended – you’ve got the figures, Clive is on the console and…”

“But you’ve got Karen to help you now,” he interrupted, sounding confused.

“What?  Her help me?  What on earth does she know about putting on a TV show?  She looks more at home inside the house arguing and getting undressed!”

“I’m sure she’s a quick learner,” he replied, dismissively, before reaching for one of the seemingly infinite and obscure objects he keeps on the side of the desk that Belle is never allowed to see. “Oh, and by the way we got the deal!”

He gently swung a bottle of beer that she’d never heard of over his desk.

“As many crates as we like for use inside the house.  If ever the contestants look like they’re getting on too well, I want at least five more crates shipped in straight away to get the fists flying.  And be sure none of the labels are covered up, yes?  The sponsors wouldn’t like it.”

            “Yes, Peter,” she said, before slipping into sarcasm. “I’m sure their sales will rocket when their brand is linked to every alcohol related assault inside the house.”

His face dropped, but before he could retaliate, a woman with such a strong Chinese accent, it was almost clichéd, was heard over the monitor.

“Archie’s such a gentleman!” she said to a fellow housemate.

Belle gritted her teeth as the sentence put Peter into “human mere-cat mode”.  He sat bolt upright in his chair and his head began turning backwards and forwards until he could focus on the appropriate monitor.

“Did you hear that?” he spluttered over and over again while his head was spinning. 

“Didn’t hear a thing,” she lied. “Can I go home now?”

Peter calmed down and adopted his “thinking pose” with his chin resting on the knuckle of his index finger while his elbow was on the desk.  For a moment, Belle dared to hope he was considering her last question.  Her optimism didn’t last long.

“It’s no use,” he said, firmly, breaking his thinking position and shaking his head. “Call a meeting of the senior staff.  Midnight or not, this is an emergency.”

“But we can soon change people’s opinions with some creative editing,” she protested, as th thought of her bed seemed to get further and further away, but the look of disapproval she received from her boss told her she was not going to win with that argument.  Thinking on her feet, she decided to appeal to his desperation for ratings. “Okay and while we’re in the board room, who exactly is going to man the console?”

To her horror, her threat didn’t have the desired effect and he merely shrugged.

“Do what we normally do on the live shows, play birdsong over the footage until the adverts come on.” 

The boardroom backed on to Peter’s office.  While Belle took the opportunity of enjoying her sit down in one of the twenty or so large leather chairs surrounding the long table, she pondered how Peter actually gets inside this room.  She never sees him in the corridors, so somewhere among the darkness in his office must be at least one concealed door into here.

“My first board meeting,” said Clive, as she felt his hand clamp on to her arm and jostle her slightly.

            She opened her eyes and looked at his excited face.  It was one of only two genuine smiles in the room.  Peter’s call to “senior staff” appeared to include the work experience kid, Karen, who was sitting in the chair nearest the front, waiting to take notes from Peter, who was still fiddling around with a slide show presentation.  It was times like this Belle would have given anything to be watching someone’s holiday snaps.  She looked round at the other faces in the room: some of the editors, the script-writer, a vision mixer, floor manager.  Anyone who had been on the show for even a fraction of her sentence had their own pot of coffee in front of them.  Before she could wonder why no one from the camera crew was here, the meeting appeared to begin.

            “Four times I heard it - four!” Peter opened with, making more than one body in the room jump forward in their seat. “Did you not understand when I said no positive praise for the posh one?”

            He must have been talking to the script-writer, as a moment later, the man who cut together the dialogue was being ejected by security with a promise that “he’d never work in reality TV again as he couldn’t even write a shopping list”.

“And I take it you all know what’s what?” he carried on with, this time seemingly directed at the rest of the staff. “Or should I say who’s who?”

            “Yes, Peter,” Karen chirped, to which he looked down at her, smiled and patted her head.

            Belle felt the coffee she’d just swallowed coming back up her throat.  Perhaps if she hadn’t been drinking, she would have said yes as well and saved them from what was to come.  Too late.

“Too late,” he declared, as his face moved off his concubine and immediately hardened into a snarl. “We’re going to have to go over it again.”

            No one dared to sigh out loud as he pressed a button on a handheld remote and the giant screen behind him changed to a picture of a fresh-faced, young man with the words “Archie, twenty-nine” overlaid.

“Now, what is TV without ratings?” he asked, in his most patronising schoolteacher-style tone. “Come on, it’s not that hard.”

“Cancelled,” everyone said, obediently, apart from Clive.

“Right – cancelled,” he confirmed, with great satisfaction. “If we don’t have the ratings then we don’t have the show and if you’ll all be joining the writers’ guild!”

He took great delight in pointing to the door the script-writer had been ejected through.  When he appeared certain that they understood, he gestured to the picture of Archie behind him.

“Archie - old bean – or as he shall be known from now on - the posh one,” he said, putting on a bad upper class English accent. “He comes from money – apparently - speaks like a Lord and will hopefully rub everyone up the wrong way when he realises we wont let his butler into the house.  Why did we pick him?”

“Because we want him to cheat,” replied Belle, hoping that spoon-feeding him one correct answer after the next will get her out of here that little bit earlier.

“Correct, well done that P.A.” he replied and she thought for a moment he was going to award her a gold star. “We chose him because we want him to cheat - cheat and moan.  Any sign of him getting annoyed with the other contestants gets prime billing and anything that looks in any way suspicious we put on air, yes?”

“Suspicious, in what way?” piped up Karen. “Arranging to meet foreign diplomats in the middle of the night?”

When Peter had stopped laughing outrageously, his apprentice received another pat on the head and a comment about having wit as well as beauty.  While Belle rolled her eyes, he went on.

“I want sound bites of Archie spliced together to incriminate him and make him look bad – the celebrity magazines will enjoy tearing him apart.”

“Hang on,” Belle interrupted, during a rare pause. “Who the hell’s writing the script now you’ve fired the writer?  I’ve got enough to do gathering kiss and tell stories about the housemates!”

“Getting past it are we?” he sneered, before Karen put her hand up to speak then spoke anyway.

“I’ll do it!”

            “I thought you would,” he said, with a dreamy sigh. “Oh you’ll make a fine addition to the team.  Anyway, where were we?  Ah, yes, the next contestant is Miki from China.  Ethnic see?  Diversity, yes?  Totally mad and with a bit of luck she’ll turn the house into one giant Japanese game-show.  We’ll keep her in till mid way through the series then send her back to serving at the local takeaway.”

While the more awake of his audience laughed nervously, he pressed the remote to bring up the next housemate: a pretty, young black girl, with the words: Hannah, twenty-four overlaid.

“Ah, Hannah, sweet Hannah,” he said, not even looking at her picture, “Also ethnic, but sadly completely devoid of personality.  She’ll go mid-series.  I doubt anyone will really notice.”

The contestant known as Barry, appeared next behind Peter, to which he began laughing uncontrollably.

“Oh dear, Barry.  Boring Barry!” he said, through more guffaws then turning in Belle’s direction. “And by the way, that’s a headline I want to see in the press.  His droning will soon grate with people.  He’s out the week after next.”

Nadine, twenty-three was next.

“Nadine,” Peter declared, like they didn’t already know. “She’s the loud one; wheelchair bound after a hunting accident while on holiday to Texas and a right mouthy cow by all accounts.  Ah the moral conflict she’ll incite – should people vote the annoying bint out, even though she’s in a wheelchair through no fault of her own.”

“What if people think she was so annoying someone decided to shoot her?” asked Karen, in a way that Belle couldn’t work out whether she was being serious or not.  Either way, it invoked yet more awful laughter from Peter, followed by a comment regarding how “this series will be the most humorous and well-written ever”.

“Actually, we haven’t had a disabled winner yet,” commented Belle, deciding to mention her own knowledge of the reality TV genre.  Not to mention the fact that she was working on this show while Karen was only just reaching “big school”.

“Good point Belle, glad to see you’re still with us,” he said, without looking at her. “But I think we’ll get a nice cripple in next year and let them win.  This one goes mid to late series.”

Lydia, twenty-seven.

“Lydia, the librarian,” he reminded them. “It took us some time, but we’ve found just about the last believer in God left in Europe.  She’ll wind people up with her constant pontificating then we’ll bin her beginning to mid-series.  Perhaps set her up as a missionary after she leaves and get a documentary crew to film her.”

As people nodded and subtly looked at their watches, Peter changed the picture to a good-looking young black man, Kelv, twenty-two.

“Here he is, D.J. Kelv in ‘da house,” Peter went on, now trying to imitate a rapper. “In the twelve years we’ve been broadcasting we have only had one ethnic winner and it’s time to redress the balance.  Not to mention stop the press bleating about how only white middleclass boys and girls win the show.”

“And gay men?” added Belle.

“Yes, but we’ve decided that for change a gay man isn’t going to win this year, but don’t worry, we do have one in there to keep the teenage girls happy.  Kelv will take the prize, yes?”

“A little early to be deciding who the winner is isn’t it?” asked Belle, before wishing she’d just nodded like everyone else.

“Why?  He’s a nice guy, seems funny, sexy, good with the ladies.  The younger girls will spend a fortune texting their love messages in to us.  He wins.  Can you suggest a better winner?”

“I like Hannah,” Clive interjected, making the whole room turn and look at him, seemingly only just remembering he existed.  Under their gaze he appeared to shrink back into his chair, only adding, “She’s black too.”

“Have you actually spoken to her?” Peter cut him down with, as if he wasn’t already cut down enough.

“Er, seeing as she’s inside the house and we spend most of our time in meetings, I doubt it somehow,” Belle said, not as sarcastically as she would have liked.

“She’s dull as dishwater!” cried Peter, as if it was obvious, before pressing the remote again to bring up a picture of a man with more make-up than Karen: Jason, twenty-four. “She’ll never be accepted as a winner.  Kelv’s our man.”

            “Jason, gay,” Peter commented. “Well, you have to have at least one!  If by some miracle he comes good on his promise of being the first contestant to have gay sex live on TV we’ll keep him in a little longer, if not, we’ll hang on to him untill we figure out which chat show he’ll be best at presenting.”

“First person to have gay sex on live TV?” scoffed Belle. “First person to have sex full stop would be a start!”

“Tell me about it!” Peter practically spat as he glared at Jason’s grinning face. “Bloody British contestants, they really haven’t embraced this whole European Union thing have they?”

“I thought I heard a couple having sex in a previous series?” Clive whispered to Belle, yet Peter answered on her behalf.

            “Having sex with chickens doesn’t count,” he said, in the same disgruntled tone. “The bloody animal rights activists were up in arms.  Did you hear about the German show?  The producers had to stop their contestants from getting it on!”

“There were two babies conceived in the Scandinavian version of Voyeur in the first series alone!” Belle pointed out, for Clive’s benefit.

“If only,” Peter said, with a dreamy sight. “Just think of the stories we could sell to the glossy magazines here after the brat popped out.”

“Just what the world needs, a child born into reality TV,” said Belle, quietly, confident Peter was still too deep in his fantasy to hear.  He wasn’t.

“Nothing wrong with that,” he remarked, sharply. “It would be guaranteed celebrity stardom from the ultrasound on!”

“Would you let your daughter on reality TV?” Belle couldn’t help but smirk.

“My daughter is far too good to be leered at by the general public,” Peter said, firmly. “And we will not be bringing her up in the same breath as these people ever again, yes?”

Belle took her scolding, but felt like it was worth it.  Meanwhile she put on her most humbled face and when Peter was satisfied he’d humiliated her enough, clicked the button onto Fern, twenty-six.

“Fern - the obligatory thick one,” he went on, happier now he was able to talk about his latest crop once more. “Research indicates that people like to feel better about themselves while watching people with an IQ less than their age.  She’ll make a few gaffs before we cull her.  The press will love to link her lack of intellect to the failing school system.”

            One firm click later and a photo of an older man, Evan, forty-two was displayed behind Peter.

“Now, lastly and definitely least: Evan, the token old guy,” he said, when he’d finished laughing. “If we bother to show him at all, he’ll be portrayed as dull and worthless to the show’s value, yes?”

“Yes,” droned his audience.

“Superb!” he cried, as he clapped his hands together to jerk a bit more life into them. “And make sure there’s something good for tomorrow’s show, if not, we’ll ship in another crate of beer - that usually does the trick, yes?  Yes!  Come on, people, Voyeur isn’t just a TV show.  It’s a degree from the University of life!  People learn from it, it helps their relationships and teaches people about the very nature of human existence!”

The fact the no one appeared to be convinced didn’t appear to bother him.  Finally, Belle assumed it was up to her to say what the others were thinking as usual.

“Peter, the answers to life can’t be found in reality TV, or with the people who sign up for it.  These people belong on the psychiatrist’s couch.”

Peter paused and digested her words.  For a split second, she even thought he may well be even seriously mulling them over.  How can she have worked here all this time and still be so wrong?

“Well there you go.  We can learn not to be like them,” he replied, cheerily, before turning and looking like he was squaring up to the giant photo of Evan behind him. “What do you look like in all that gold?  I can’t believe you bothered to unpack!” 

The sea was warm as the gentle waves lapped at Belle’s feet.  In the middle of the tropical beach she was standing on, stood a muscular man in his mid twenties with long flowing blonde locks.  He smiled seductively at her and held up her favourite cocktail.  She felt like she couldn’t refuse and took it from the silver tray in his hand.  After taking a sip of the tall glass’ divine contents, she looked back up at his chiselled jaw and flawless tan. 

To her horror, he was now in his late forties and his tan was now leathery.  Worse still, his once blonde hair was now blatantly dyed black and slicked back with too much hair gel.  He reached out one jewellery-clad hand towards her breasts and leered at her.

“Peter?” she cried, before opening her eyes and seeing a man’s face standing over her.

“Belle, are you okay?” Clive asked, cautiously, as he looked down on her.  She nodded and straightened up.  That would teach her for dozing off at the back of the control room on the couch. “Someone’s up!”

She blinked and looked at the large digital clock on the wall.  It was supposed to make sure they knew exactly what time any pertinent event occurred within the house.  Right now it read 5.42 in the morning in large blood-red digits.  She looked beyond the two console operators who were working the graveyard shift with them and up at the monitors.

“One of them has got up,” Clive whispered, as if the housemate wandering around the house could somehow hear them. “Should we put this in tonight’s show?”

“Clive, just log it if one of them takes their clothes off,” she replied, as she lay back down and pulled her coat up again. “You don’t have to tell me every time one of them goes to the bathroom.  Interesting events only please?  Has anything interesting actually happened yet?”

“One of them made some tea.”

“Clive, if I was in your kitchen making a cup of tea, would you want to watch me?” she replied, as she rubbed the side of her cheek and felt the imprint the arm of the couch had made on her skin.

“Why would you be in my kitchen?” he replied, slightly defensively, “And what about my wife?  She doesn’t like me bring friends back without…”

“Well, for arguments sake let’s just say that I was.  Would it be something you’d really want to watch?”

            Clive thought about it as she settled back to sleep, but no sooner had she closed her eyes, than he was jabbing her shoulder again with one finger.

“Sorry to wake you,” he began with, as if she had dropped back off to sleep in the last two seconds.  He gestured back at the two console operators who were reading yesterday’s newspapers. “Shouldn’t they be helping us more?”

“You wish,” she scoffed, before sitting back up to yell at them. “You lot have it easy!”

Neither looked round.  In fact, one might have been asleep.  However, the one who was admitting to being awake replied with.

“We just do what we’re told – nothing else,” to which Belle merely nodded her head and turned back to Clive.

“You see, some people just follow orders without question – that way they never take any of the blame,” she said, quietly. “If you want them to do something like log an event then you have to tell them.  And probably put the pen in their hand while you’re at it.  Clive, it’s up to you, but if you want a quiet life, just do whatever Peter tells you, if you want to try thinking for yourself, expect a fight, or a P45.”

“Is that what you do?” he replied, after weighing up the two options.

“I don’t know,” she said, with a sigh. “I walk a thin line between them both.  Shame the editor didn’t.  Peter’s got his new little bimbo Karen cutting and pasting dialogue together right now. And when I say now, I mean when she gets back from the opening night party with our lord and master.”

“You don’t like Karen much, do you?” he added, after mulling over her words.

“Whatever gave you that impression?” she snapped, sarcastically, to which Clive jumped back.  Seeing the look of hurt on his face, she grimaced and shook her head, before making sure she lowered her tone to continue. “I don’t know, she just reminds me of…well, maybe she remind me of me – when I first came here.  I thought it was all so exciting - until I saw what I had to do to climb the ladder, or rather who I had to do; if you know what I mean?”

            Clive’s facial expression told her he had no idea what she meant.

“Oh never mind,” she sighed, realising she was now fully awake. “So, tell me, which one’s gone to the bathroom this time?”

“Hannah.”

“Oh, forget it then,” she scoffed. “You heard Peter call her bland.  Even if she taught the chickens Shakespeare, it wouldn’t make tomorrow’s show.  Same goes for Lydia or old man Evan.”

“I don’t see what’s so bad about letting an older person win,” he said, dejectedly. “People seem to think that once you pass forty then…”

            “It’s been done before,” she interrupted, too tired to take on anyone else’s problems. “In season six to be precise, they let a butcher win.”

“Let?”

“Yeah…let – but I wouldn’t go mentioning it to anyone,” she said, quietly. “The small print in your contract will have you dead and buried before you can actually tell anyone what goes on here.”

“I didn’t read mine,” mused Clive, before opening his mouth to say something, stopping, thinking and finally coming out with. “Wait, didn’t he come from Bermondsey, the older contestant?  I think I do remember reading something about him now.”

“Yeah, that’s right.  The butcher of Bermondsey we christened him,” she said, sitting back in the couch.

“Whatever happened to him?”

            “The same thing that happens to all of them: attended some film premieres, presented some cable TV shows then faded into obscurity.  No wait, I think he was one of the ones that died.”

“One of the ones who died?” he spluttered, making Belle realise that probably sounded way too casual to an outsider. “What’s the life expectancy of a contestant after leaving the house?”

“Roughly about sixty-five percent of them survive, not including the fourth series, that one got a bit messy,” she replied with a shudder. “That was the time when the group bonded a bit too well.  They formed their own cult.  They said none of them truly deserved to lose.  Apparently it would be too much rejection, when they all finally got out they met up and…”

“Yeah, thanks, I think I remember turning off the news when that story came on,” he replied, as he scratched his head. “I think reality TV hurts people.”

“Maybe, but did you watch any of the contestants’ audition tapes?” she replied. “Every one of them said the same old thing about how…they say what they think and how they love confrontations.  Sadly there’s an audience for it.  Just like there’s an audience for watching people get beheaded on the Internet.”

“There is?” coughed Clive, as he clutched his chest.

“Yeah, and Peter owns most of those sites too.”

Day two of the new series of Voyeur dawned.  To Belle, this marked the third day with virtually no sleep.  By now, she was sick of the taste of coffee, but since ten o’clock this morning she had found a new source of momentum to keep her going: rage.

 Apparently Karen had strolled into work a few minutes ago and, besides looking flawless, decided her first take of the day was to file her nails in the control room.  Belle was on her way there now as she needed someone to unblock the staff toilets.  The control room’s door was open and she could see Karen’s knee high boots up on a mixing desk, but no sooner was she in the room, than a headset-wearing Clive had accosted her.

            “Oh, hi Belle, do you think…”

            The start of his sentence echoed through the room, even making Karen sit up and take notice.  The Vision Mixers at the console spun round and glared at him while Belle wrenched the device from around his head and pressed the off button.  After she’d calmed down, she handed the headset back to him to the sound of shouts from confused contestants, now wondering who Belle was and what she was thinking.

“Sorry,” he said to Belle, when everyone in the room had finally stopped scowling at him. “I keep forgetting to switch it off.”

“That’s the third time he’s spoken to the house by accident since I’ve been here!” laughed Karen, as she resumed her manicure. “The last time was when his wife rang up.  You should have seen the contestants’ faces!”

“I said I was sorry,” snapped Clive, but not particularly threateningly. “I’m just having trouble getting to grips with these headsets.”

“Just switch it on when one of them goes to the Box Room to talk to us directly,” she snapped, more firmly than he could and he withered back to standing between two filing cabinets.  Belle took the opportunity to concentrate on Karen. “Busy are we?”

“Swamped!” she said with a grin, without looking at her questioner.

            “Yeah, I see you’ve still got your eyeliner to do,” Belle replied, sarcastically. “What happened?  The lips, eye shadow and nails took longer than you thought huh?”

“I’m thinking,” she said, calmly.

“Oh well that’s alright then,” replied Belle, as the anger began to bubble up inside her. “I’m glad you’re not just sitting around doing nothing!”

“Belle, I’m thinking what to write - edit – whatever,” Karen said, calmly, before picking out the top of Clive’s head poking out from between the cabinets, “Clive, any chance of a coffee?”

“Oh, okay then,” he said, meekly as he resurfaced and tottered out of the room.

“And I’ll have a coffee too – black!” Belle called after him, before adding quietly to herself. “And he’s supposed to be in charge?”

“What do you expect, he’s Peter’s accountant,” Karen added, while she dusted off the remains of her nails from her crop top. “Apparently it’s a tax break to get him to direct the show and keep the books.”

“Peter’s accountant, how on earth do you know that?” she asked, as her clipboard fell to the ground. “No wait don’t tell me – pillow talk?”

“My sister’s in the police, if I’m nice to her she runs background checks on people for me,” Karen replied, as she sat forward and grinned at Belle as she picked up her workload from the floor.

“Isn’t that illegal?” she muttered, while jamming her paperwork back into the clipboard.

“Yeah, under normal circumstances, but round here it seems pretty run of the mill,” she said, casually. “I wonder what people would say if they knew what goes on here?”

            Her words made Belle leave the rest of her possessions in the middle of the room and take Karen by her annoyingly toned arm.  The other people in the room had also heard Karen’s last comment and Belle figured a little talk in private was in order.

“Ow!” exclaimed Karen, as she pulled away from Belle’s vice-like grip once they were in the corridor. “\What’s the matter?”

            Belle didn’t answer.  She looked up and down the long, faceless passageway to check no one was around.  They were alone, but still she didn’t feel entirely comfortable.  Peter had once joked about putting cameras in her flat.  She had laughed at the time, but the next time she was home, she had checked every electrical appliance for signs of bugs.

“Listen, I really wouldn’t talk like that around here,” she said, firmly to Karen while maintaining eye contact at all times. “Walls have ears you know – or rather microphones!  Haven’t you read your contract?”

“Yeah, so?”

“So?” spluttered Belle, as he eyes widened. “Doesn’t it worry you what happens if you let slip what goes on around here?”

“Hey, I didn’t say I was actually going to say anything, did I?” she replied, with a causal shrug. “Anyway, you’ve worked here long enough.  Haven’t you ever been tempted to speak out?”

“Well, yeah,” replied Belle, before she could think. “Wait no!  Well, maybe.  But look, it’s not going to happen okay?  I’m surprised enough Peter would let someone so close to the law in here.”

“How do you think I got this gig in the first place?” she said, smugly. “My sister busted Ray for possession of an illegal substance, no hang on, it might have been Ford – I can never tell those guys apart.”

“You’re not the first,” added Belle, dryly.

“Yeah, so anyway, part of the deal to keep it out of the press was a few free tickets for the force and a job for me!” she continued, cheerily, before stopping to think and adding, “In fact, I think she only did it to get me out of the house.”

            Before Belle could say anything further, Clive ambled back down the corridor with a tray of drinks.  Karen peered at hers.

“You know I like my coffee white!” she cried, before turning him a hundred and eighty degrees and pointing back in the direction of the canteen.

            “Thanks very much,” said Belle, insincerely once he’d gone. “You could have at least got him to leave my drink!”

“Did you actually see it?” asked Karen, with raised eyebrows.  “It was orange juice.” 

Title:  Consequence

Medium:  Manuscript

Genre:  Science Fiction

Full length:  Undetermined

Current status:  In progress

Daniel Roberts was bored and irritated, yet still managed to find time for a perverse feeling of satisfaction.  He had devoted the best part of his thirty-nine years to helping out the Concerned.  He, along with other like him, had carried out their orders without question, ensuring the general public never knew about Sanctuary and the ongoing war against the Kindred.

            Then one day, deep within the bowels of the underground dwelling, a decision was taken to expel him from their ranks.  He had always believed in the possibility of time travel, despite Sanctuary’s elders condemning it as impossible and illegal.  The fact that they appeared to ban research into the phenomenon only made him more determined to prove it was feasible.  But his hidden agenda was uncovered and he was dutifully expelled.

            He thought helping save Sanctuary during the war may have put him back in their good books.  It didn’t.  It was only now that he sat in a small, dingy shop that supposedly sold new age tat that he finally knew he had been right all along.

            Lennon made sure Adam followed his exact footsteps through the gutted store to behind the counter.  Adam blinked and looked round when he immediately realised something was different.  The smell of burning that his nostrils had got so used to as he made his way through the town was suddenly overpowered with a different odour.  It wasn’t a particularly nice smell, but it made him look back.

            He was still in Lennon’s shop, only as he turned round, the place was completely untouched.  His friend never kept his business in particularly good order at the best of times and to an untrained eye, someone might even think the place had been ransacked.  The walls were now whole again and the glass was back in the front windows.  Lennon’s trinkets and goods were – as usual – all over the floor and counter, but most surprisingly, there was Daniel, leaning against the wall glaring at Drew.

            “What the hell’s going on?” Adam gasped as he struggled to find an explanation.

            “Welcome back to the future,” replied Daniel dryly.

            Adam continued to look all around the small room.  It was like it was before they left for wherever they had been before they came here.  He tried to remember where they’d been, but the tingle of yet another head ache started up and he decided he didn’t need to remember that right now.

            “What are you doing here?” he continued as he regarded his old comrade in arms.

            The man stopped leaning against the wall and without answering, brushed his long greasy hair back and regarded the three men.

            “Waiting for the two of you - it’s about time you got here,” he said coldly to Adam and Lennon, before turning and looking Drew up and down like he’d never seen the man before. “Although, I must admit, you’re a bit of a surprise.”

“What?” replied Drew blankly.

“You’re not really with them, are you?” he went on. “You’re from here – 2014 – not like them.  They’re from where I come from – 2016.  In fact, the room you’re standing in is probably all that’s left of our timeline.”

“Well, that clears it up then,” added Adam sarcastically. “But for those of us who came back from holiday to the world fell apart, would you mind filling us in?”

“Not at all,” he replied in a slightly more friendly tone. “I’ve been over what I’m about to tell you so many times while I’ve been sitting here, I kind of assumed you know more than you do.”

“So, how come my shop’s okay from the inside when it’s almost been burnt to the ground?” Lennon got in first.

“Because the four of us are no longer in 2014,” he replied. “Ever since I joined the Concerned I’ve been investigating the possibilities of time travel – not that it’s done me any favours in the long run, but…anyway, when I was kicked out of Sanctuary, I took with me a few keepsakes.”

He walked over to the counter and brushed a few old pizza boxes onto the floor.  He unfastened the brown leather Strap that ran up his left arm and placed it on the counter.  Once upon a time it might have been identical to the ones Adam and Lennon were wearing, but it was plain to see he’d made many modifications in his time.  Diodes, readouts and little flashing lights that seemed to bleep for no reason could be seen interwoven into the leather.  Next to it, he placed an item that Lennon immediately described best.