Television Arts and Sciences.
She graduated from this hallowed institution in the top percentile and could have had her pick of domestic production jobs. But she kept her eyes on the prize. There were no openings on Earth, so she took the toughest jobs she could find around the galaxy to hone her skills, producing celebrity asteroids and CrazyWorlds. When the opportunity came, she wanted to be ready.
One day, while setting up shots for a mutant fight on Altair 3, she read on her screen that a producer on the USA desk of Channel Blue was retiring. She felt a surge of excitement. It was not just a job on her favourite planet, but a job producing her favourite tribe on her favourite planet. She knew it was hers even before she interviewed for it.
Unfortunately, dream jobs rarely live up to their hype. It seemed as if Amanda had barely moved into her new office before she started overhearing worried conversations in the elevators. Ratings hadn’t been an issue for Channel Blue for years. The channel had made executives rich and shareholders wealthy; it had employed hundreds of thousands of producers, editors and technicians, and was such a reliable fixture of the Edenite culture that ‘Earthle’ had become an affectionate nickname for someone slow on the uptake. But as the numbers on even its more reliable shows dwindled, the channel seemed vulnerable. Producers forced out of their comfort zones scrambled to come up with new programming, and executives looked the other way while production crews flagrantly manipulated events on Earth in an attempt to increase ratings.
Amanda was the first to borrow ideas from Earthle writers. Unlike most of her colleagues, she was not just a connoisseur of Earthles as entertainment but of Earthle entertainment as well. While her efforts were rewarded with modest spikes in viewership, such was the prejudice against Earthle culture that the practice was not embraced by other producers. The haemorrhaging of viewers continued.
Amanda hadn’t dreamed all those years and worked on all those asteroids to give up without a fight. This was still her dream job. And now that she had it, she wasn’t going to let them blow it up because of some lousy ratings.
This was why, standing in the dark empty parking lot of Galaxy Entertainment, she talked Dennis out of his jacket and talked Perry into putting it on, along with a Galaxy Entertainment baseball cap she found in the back of the service van. She pulled it down until the brim covered Perry’s face.
‘Keep your head down and let us hold you up,’ Amanda ordered. She and Dennis walked on either side of Perry, steering him through the double glass doors and into the lobby. Under the brim of his cap, Perry could see the security guard look up from his reading.
‘It’s Tim,’ Amanda told the guard. ‘He’s not feeling well.’ The guard waved them on. The three walked together through the security door, which slammed shut behind them.
Keeping his head down, Perry heard distant voices over the hum of electronics. He watched the shadows of the long corridor give way to blurred reflections as they skirted the edge of the huge monitor-filled room. After about twenty feet, he felt a shove from one side and stumbled into a small room. Suddenly, everything was quiet.
Perry lifted his cap and saw that he and Amanda were alone in a room surrounded by white illuminated walls. ‘Dennis is keeping an eye out for security,’ Amanda said. She approached a smooth black pyramid in the middle of the floor and touched it with the fly tattoo on the inside of her left wrist. The walls came to life with flickering images and the room erupted with a cacophony of sound.
The wall on the right played a series of fast clips that showed men fighting in a bar, rioting soccer fans crushed under a fence and jets colliding in mid-air. These assaulting images were accompanied by a rapid-fire announcement: ‘Bar fights! Soccer riots! Air shows! Every fatal Earthle
She graduated from this hallowed institution in the top percentile and could have had her pick of domestic production jobs. But she kept her eyes on the prize. There were no openings on Earth, so she took the toughest jobs she could find around the galaxy to hone her skills, producing celebrity asteroids and CrazyWorlds. When the opportunity came, she wanted to be ready.
One day, while setting up shots for a mutant fight on Altair 3, she read on her screen that a producer on the USA desk of Channel Blue was retiring. She felt a surge of excitement. It was not just a job on her favourite planet, but a job producing her favourite tribe on her favourite planet. She knew it was hers even before she interviewed for it.
Unfortunately, dream jobs rarely live up to their hype. It seemed as if Amanda had barely moved into her new office before she started overhearing worried conversations in the elevators. Ratings hadn’t been an issue for Channel Blue for years. The channel had made executives rich and shareholders wealthy; it had employed hundreds of thousands of producers, editors and technicians, and was such a reliable fixture of the Edenite culture that ‘Earthle’ had become an affectionate nickname for someone slow on the uptake. But as the numbers on even its more reliable shows dwindled, the channel seemed vulnerable. Producers forced out of their comfort zones scrambled to come up with new programming, and executives looked the other way while production crews flagrantly manipulated events on Earth in an attempt to increase ratings.
Amanda was the first to borrow ideas from Earthle writers. Unlike most of her colleagues, she was not just a connoisseur of Earthles as entertainment but of Earthle entertainment as well. While her efforts were rewarded with modest spikes in viewership, such was the prejudice against Earthle culture that the practice was not embraced by other producers. The haemorrhaging of viewers continued.
Amanda hadn’t dreamed all those years and worked on all those asteroids to give up without a fight. This was still her dream job. And now that she had it, she wasn’t going to let them blow it up because of some lousy ratings.
This was why, standing in the dark empty parking lot of Galaxy Entertainment, she talked Dennis out of his jacket and talked Perry into putting it on, along with a Galaxy Entertainment baseball cap she found in the back of the service van. She pulled it down until the brim covered Perry’s face.
‘Keep your head down and let us hold you up,’ Amanda ordered. She and Dennis walked on either side of Perry, steering him through the double glass doors and into the lobby. Under the brim of his cap, Perry could see the security guard look up from his reading.
‘It’s Tim,’ Amanda told the guard. ‘He’s not feeling well.’ The guard waved them on. The three walked together through the security door, which slammed shut behind them.
Keeping his head down, Perry heard distant voices over the hum of electronics. He watched the shadows of the long corridor give way to blurred reflections as they skirted the edge of the huge monitor-filled room. After about twenty feet, he felt a shove from one side and stumbled into a small room. Suddenly, everything was quiet.
Perry lifted his cap and saw that he and Amanda were alone in a room surrounded by white illuminated walls. ‘Dennis is keeping an eye out for security,’ Amanda said. She approached a smooth black pyramid in the middle of the floor and touched it with the fly tattoo on the inside of her left wrist. The walls came to life with flickering images and the room erupted with a cacophony of sound.
The wall on the right played a series of fast clips that showed men fighting in a bar, rioting soccer fans crushed under a fence and jets colliding in mid-air. These assaulting images were accompanied by a rapid-fire announcement: ‘Bar fights! Soccer riots! Air shows! Every fatal Earthle
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