Chetsworth smiled and looked at me.

  “But I also know that Sue got all my little reporters and staff home safe last night, and I think that also deserves some praise and certainly a night off.”

  I smiled back at Chetsworth.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” stated Karen in a flat and uninterested tone, “but I believe the news should be starting now.”

  “Thank you, Karen.” Skip motioned to the clock, “She is right, it is time to start the news.”

  The studio lights came on strong and the theme music started. From where Mia’s usual place, Karen motioned for me to start as someone who wasn’t Carl, our regular cameraman #1, started to film. I was up, I had to start reading the teleprompter.

  “Good morning Maxima City. I’m your host Susanna Squalls, the mild-mannered secret identity of Current Events.”

  Chetsworth’s line was next.

  “And I’m your host Chet Worthington, mild-mannered secret identity of Sportscaster and I welcome you to NNN Morning Sunshine.”

  I squeaked a little. Chetsworth was not a ‘host’. He was a ‘co-host’. Who wrote this? Norton and I were the ‘hosts’, not Chetsworth. My throat nearly closed up but I managed to get out my next line.

  “That’s right Chetsworth, and I know a lot more viewers than normal are watching this morning to see what happened after the festivities of yesterday.”

  That clip of Norton grabbing me to dance about the newsroom played for the viewers at home. I covered my face when I saw it and a montage of internet memes yet again.

  “Chet. I agree, Sue.” Chetsworth smugly smiled.

  “Susanna.” I mumbled.

  A clip of a very drunk Chetsworth running around the newsroom doing sock puppet impersonations of all his other colleagues while wearing a tie on his forehead played. Chetsworth lost a lot of the colour out of his smug when that played. I felt a little bit better about myself at that moment, but for the very first time in the history of ever, I felt a little bit bad for Chet, er Chetsworth. He had technically ‘saved’ the newscast by showing up yesterday, but it obviously hadn’t played out like how he had remembered it and his sock impersonations were terrible.

  Chetsworth had the next teleprompter line.

  “I wanted to be the first to assure our loyal viewers that yesterday was a one-time event and that the NNN family takes our jobs very seriously.”

  This was a terrible broadcast, I felt like Chetsworth and I were seven-year-olds scolding ourselves live and on the air for stealing cookies from the jar in the kitchen above the fridge.

  My line of apology was next.

  “And I wanted to both assure our viewers that nothing as exciting as yesterday will happen here for a good long while and also I would like to officially congratulate my co-worker Chetsworth for his new position as the…”.

  I had frozen solid mid-line and my stomach felt like it was full of sweaty butterflies with stage-fright. I was doing something I had never done before, choking on a live broadcast, but a dead smile from Skip and a ‘go on’ hand motion from Karen forced my tongue to continue the teleprompter line. “… as my new equal host of the Neutral News Network?!”

  Chetsworth looked more stunned than I did, but managed to say his next line of “Thank you, Susanna and we will be back after these words from our sponsors.”

  The ‘live’ light blinked off just in time for me to have a flip out.

  “You’re making Chetsworth a host?!” I yelled at Skip.

  “Yeah, are you crazy?” Chetsworth said dumbfounded. “Sue is right. I can only juggle sports equipment. How am I supposed to report on things when I can’t juggle them?”

  Chetsworth actually agreed with me on this? That was interesting.

  Skip smiled back. “I sure am. Crazy that is. However misguided Chet’s attempts were yesterday he was the only one who managed to show up, and that has to be worth something.

  “But Norton is the other host here.” I countered.

  “The man won, what, 14 billion dollars yesterday. I am positive he isn’t coming back to work anytime soon.”

  I blinked. I was pretty sure that Norton actually would be the kind of person to come back to work the next day after winning the lottery, but Skip was probably right. 14 billion is a lot of reasons to not show up.

  “But, what about Don?” Chetsworth threw another option back.

  “Don is contractually obligated to be the city’s official weatherman until death. He can’t change positions, Chet.” Skip smiled.

  “Calamity?” I guessed.

  “Do you know how much the insurance on her costs to even be a roving reporter? She’d cost me more than Norton if she was here full time.”

  “Uh… Mia has expressed interest in being in-front of the camera?” Chetsworth guessed. I wasn’t sure if that was true or not, but we were out of other options and I agreed.

  “Mia is Cloverform. Her skin, eyes, and hair are all green. How do you two not know what happens to people on the news that wear green?”

  Skip had a good point. I didn’t know how to reply and Chetsworth was speechless. Skip was ready with his and he delivered it with a sudden burst of cold that would have frozen a walrus at an ice cube convention.

  “Good. Then it is settled and we are done talking about this. Chet is the new host. Sue isn’t going to complain. There will be no more crazy shenanigans around the newsroom unless I personally give those crazy shenanigans a green light. Not that I ever will, but if I ever happen to lose my fucking godforsaken mind and ask the two of you to dance for me like the crazy monkeys you are while wearing gingham dresses you both better pray that wardrobe has gingham dresses backstage and that you can throw your monkey shit on command or you two fucks will be out of here so fast that even The Blur’s head would spin right off. Do I make myself clear?”

  I looked at Chetsworth and he looked at me. He might have had an even more stunned expression on his face than I probably did.

  “He asked you a question.” Karen eventually said to fill in the silence.

  I could only nod. I assume Chet did as well.

  Skip changed back to his happier persona in an instant. “Perfect! Now the commercial break is almost over, and have fun out there!”

  Skip did not move or speak for the rest of the morning news. He only sat in his chair holding up his face with a fist and watching us intently while Karen ticked off things on her clipboard.

  As others trickled in late they were escorted into Mia’s office at first by Karen, and then by Karen’s private security detail that had shown up. That was the one office Chetsworth and I could see from our desks and it was obvious that Karen had chosen it on purpose.

  Don, who had been the first to stumble in, left the office relatively quickly and was soft-spoken and meek when he joined us up front to do the news. Don could be a lot of things, but I had never once thought he could be meek.

  No others escaped as quickly as Don from what I could only assume was the boiling hell that was Karen with her clipboard and tight bun berating them in Mia’s office. New intern Torrance Lawrence was the next to come out and he looked worse than he did last night. He quietly returned to his job of stacking muffins on that one table over there and bringing people coffee, even though he didn’t know any of the new people working and they didn’t seem to drink coffee.

  When the next person came out, I was glad that it was during a commercial break, because otherwise I would have sworn on air. Carl Bingston, the mild mannered secret identity of The Cameraman—whose 35 year anniversary party had been interrupted for Norton’s lottery-winning party—was in tears, wailing like a small child about how he didn’t want to go, as two of Karen’s newly arrived security guards dragged him from the room. A third was carrying a box that said ‘Carl Bingston’ on it.

  Chetsworth, Don, Torrance, and I watched on in shock as Carl was escorted from the room, and presumably the building. There was only one possible reason for this and we all knew it. Carl had been fired. Being fired from any job would be terrible, but being fired from a news related job was so much worse. Carl would lose his Neutral Citizen Status and could now become the innocent target of many a Mal or Bennie’s destruction. He would lose his home in the Neutral News Network Tower Apartments and be forced to live outside of the Neutral zone. He could no longer visit any of his favourite places in the Neutral Zone, or even talk to any of us unless he wanted to be taken in for questioning by the Neutral Task Force and explain why.

  To us, it was like we had just watched Carl die in front of our eyes. Lovable Carl, who had shown up every single day for work and loved his job. Perfect Carl, who had worked here longer than anyone else. Amazing Carl, who had helped me to overcome my shyness when I started here nineteen years ago as a muffin stacker and encouraged me to apply for the job of Roving Reporter. Carl was gone from our lives. Just like that.

  The next person to come from the office was Linda Schromph. She was the one person I didn’t drive home last night from the bar simply because she hadn’t bothered to come into work yesterday. That still hadn’t stopped her from being late today. She left the office looking very relieved and joined Torrance at the muffin table.

  That made no sense. Carl was fired when he hadn’t caused anyone a single problem in thirty-five years, but ‘Lasty-Late-Linda’, the person that missed half of her shifts was spared? Everyone was shocked at that, especially Linda.

  The morning news was over, but not a single person in the studio budged. We were all transfixed by the evil portal to Karen’s captured office as each member of the news team emerged to reveal their fate. No one could predict the outcome of anyone else beforehand, because Karen’s decisions didn’t make any sense.

  Frederic English, the hard working janitor, was escorted out, but Axel Moorison, the janitor who hardly worked, was kept. Ginger Bunson who had a talent for talking to fires to put them out therefore saving the company thousands of dollars on their fire insurance premiums was gone, but Serenity Masters who had a talent for accidentally talking microwaves into rising up against their human oppressors and cost the company thousands of dollars a year to battle the constant string of lawsuits from newly sentient microwaves was kept. Sandy Forsythe Edwards was kept on, but her identical twin sister with the same job, Sandy Forsythia Edwards got the boot. No one could even tell those two apart, they were always together, and they had the exact same job.

  No one was guaranteed safe from Karen’s clipboard and everyone that was not escorted out by security watched on in shock. We watched through the News at Noon. We watched during our break. We watched during the Breaking News segment about the latest victims of Lady Loveless, the bitter rivals known as Gayzer and the Twig, had been seen holding hands instead of trying to break each other’s necks and that viewers were encouraged to help bring in the dangerous lady vigilante of love. We watched during our dinner break. We watched during the night news and the late-night news that the relief anchors should have hosted but couldn’t because they had both been fired. No one could do anything but watch as a sixth of the entire company was escorted from the premises, never to return. No one would move until the fate of everyone had been determined.

  All while Skip Skipply sat there and watched us from his chair.

  Unmoving. Unemotional. Unhuman.

  We were grateful for everyone who kept their jobs and was spared expulsion from the Neutral Zone, even terrible people like Linda.

  Roving Reporter Calamity Jones, the mild-mannered secret identity of The Jinx, escaped Karen right before midnight in a totally wrecked state of mind, but with her job intact. Non-roving accountant Barton Bonesworth, the mild-mannered secret identity of Bonestorm, who came out next did not escape Karen’s clipboard and was escorted out.

  No one came out after Barton for over two hours, but no one would budge from their spots. Only one person was left to come out and not a single person here would abandon her for something as trivial as sleep. The person who, until today, we all thought was our boss, and the best one we all have ever had, Mia Clovers, mild-mannered secret identity of Cloverform.

  When Mia came out of Karen’s office at 2:17am holding a box with her name on it and in tears, my heart broke with hers.

  Chapter 7

  I don’t remember much of Wednesday. I was tired and emotionally broken and it all passed in a blur. Thursday felt much the same but at least I had some sleep so I remembered most of it. That didn’t make it any better, but at least it was something.

  Skip did not return, but The Great Clipboard Dictator, which is what everyone was calling Karen now, did. She had taken over Mia’s job of producer and she was ruthless in her duties. Anyone that talked to her, brought her the wrong beverage (which she just ignored anyway), or even so much as glanced at her would be met with a series of furious ticks from the Almighty Pen attached to her Clipboard of Power. No one had any idea what she was even ticking, no one had been brave enough to check, but at least no one else had been fired yet.

  Friday was both wonderful and terrible. Not the work part, I really wasn’t in the best of spirits for that part, but after work was another story. Mia had spent what little money she had saved and invited everyone in the Neutral News Network Tower Apartments to a giant good-bye party. Well, giant for our salary at least. The community spirit had never been higher and people brought all sorts of food, games, and activities to enjoy. I had finally bothered to spend time on Thursday night to make multiple pans of the vegetarian lasagnas I was famous for at the station. Honestly, I’d only ever cooked lasagne once seven years ago, but it was an absolute hit.

  Not even Linda was late. Everyone at the station past and present showed up, except for Norton. No one had seen him all week and the rumour going around was that he had taken his entire extended family on a vacation to Tallahassee to go and visit the world’s largest magnet. That Norton did love his magnetic fields.

  It truly was an amazing night. Mia’s top floor apartment had roof access via the broken fire escape. In all my years of taking tea up on the roof I had never once noticed that ladder, but everyone used it to get up to the roof and mingle. When it was finally dark and everyone was showing the first signs of fading, The Human Cannon set off an amazing firework display. We all enjoyed the wonderful bittersweet chocolate dessert that Mia had made as the night sky was lit up. And then it was over.

  I laid in bed that night and stared at the dark ceiling, lost in thought. I don’t know what time I finally drifted off, but I remember the first hints of daylight starting to creep in through my vertical blinds. I have always kept those tightly closed because when they were open they looked like prison bars. It was a terrible reminder of my life. Being part of the media kept me safe from the various hazards of Maxima City in the Neutral Zone, but it really was a prison. A prison with old carpets, squeaky floors, and an elevator call button that zapped you for even daring to press it. That had never actually bothered me before that night, but that night felt like that time I had roving reported from inside the lock-up section of The Leopold Bendazzi Asylum for the Criminally Insane.

  Saturday was an experience. It was eviction day. Everyone that had been fired only had until midnight to get all of their personal effects from their apartments out. No one really had that many effects, since all of the furniture, electronics, and clothing had been provided by the station, but people still had things to carry and it was inspiring to see how many people came to help those without Talents that were well suited to moving boxes.

  I mostly helped Carl. He was getting on in years, his Talent of precognitive camera focusing couldn’t do heavy lifting, and had more time to accumulate personal effects than anyone else at the station. His apartment was on the top floor and a long walk to the elevator through a busy box filled hallway, but with a combination of his ability to hand things out a window and my ability to fly we cut down the moving time considerably.

  Then it was Sunday. Then Sunday was over. I stared at the ceiling again that night, but drifted off much earlier. I didn’t want it to be Monday, but the relentless marching of time cannot be bargained with.

  Chapter 8

  I gripped my morning tea tightly and stared down the elevator call button. With great trepidation, I finally got the courage to press it. Zap!

  Ouch!

  “You son of a bitch!”

  I pressed that stupid button in retaliation as fast and as many times as I could.

  “You cannot beat me today foul button, for today I am not only the master of electricity, but also of your sorry ass!”

  The energy flowed freely from my charged fingers as my eyes lit up with the pure electrical energy of Mother Nature herself. I laughed maniacally and the door opened wide for me and me alone. I was the master of it. I walked inside the elevator like the queen that I was.

  “Morning, Sue.”

  It was Don. I was not embarrassed in the slightest, for I had beaten the elevator call button this morning without resorting to levitation and was quite proud of myself.

  I smiled at Don, he was well aware of my arch-nemesis, the elevator call button.

  “I finally kicked that fucking elevator call button’s ass today.”

  “Ah.” Replied Don, “I figured that was you. This whole elevator lit up for a moment with the raw essence of Mother Nature herself and I heard your maniacal laughter so I pressed the button for the second floor.”

  I lost my queenly elegance in an instant.

  “You pressed the 2F button?”

  Don nodded.

  “So, I didn’t actually beat the button, it only came up here because you told it to?”

  Don patted me on the shoulder. I scowled at the control panel for the elevator. Don pressed ‘R’, but nothing happened. Don pressed it again and again nothing.

  “Uh?” Don muttered.

  “Did I break it?” I asked. “I broke it, didn’t I?”

  Don rolled his eyes at the situation. “This dumb thing has been broken for years and you have done far worse things to it before. Probably just shorted out or something.”

 

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