Platinum donkeys, p.1
Platinum Donkeys, page 1
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
PLATINUM DONKEYS
First edition. March 1, 2024.
Copyright © 2024 Pat Scaramuzza.
ISBN: 978-0996133944
Written by Pat Scaramuzza.
Also by Pat Scaramuzza
Platinum Donkeys (Coming Soon)
Watch for more at Pat Scaramuzza’s site.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Also By Pat Scaramuzza
Dedication
Chapter 1—Meet & Greet
Interstitial
Chapter 2—Off-Script
Chapter 3—Cold Reading
Chapter 4—The Ultimate Backstage
Interstitial
Chapter 5—Ready for her closeup
Chapter 6—Amateur Hour
Chapter 7—Scenery Change
Chapter 8—Spotlight Downstage | Interstitial
Chapter 9—Musical Guests
Interstitial
Chapter 10—Casting Call
Chapter 11—Props and Costumes
Chapter 12—Exit, stage left.
Chapter 13—Ensemble Freeze | Interstitial
Chapter 14—Blackout
Interstitial
Chapter 15—Understudy Call-In
Chapter 16—Rehearsal Problems
Chapter 17—Showtime | Interstitial
Chapter 18—Curtain Call
Chapter 19—Smash Cut
Chapter 20—Take a Bow
Also By Pat Scaramuzza
About the Author
To Beth my anchor, and Dahnai my muse.
Chapter 1—Meet & Greet
Maggie realized she had cornered her producer against the video wall. For a moment she imagined it was a window, and considered shoving Tom through it. But the image of the Earth below showed the Pacific Ocean, as always, so he'd just splash into the water. No good, she thought. Not enough blood for her tastes.
"Look, Mags," Tom said, rattling the ice in his glass to remind her she was keeping him from the bar. "Just rewrite the skit. It's too much."
"That's what our viewers want, Tom. They want me to be over the top, out of control, spiraling into disaster. They want me to tear the goddamn planet in half, and if we had the budget I'd do it for them."
"I know your viewers better than you do. We've got to serve the entire globe, and too many markets have banned us already."
An android tried to walk around Maggie to service Tom's drink. She hip-checked it, and the dumb mannequin stumbled into the midst of the party guests. "Screw the market bans. Fifteen percent of world share would ban us over bare ankles. Local programs in Europe show tits and ass all the time."
"The Megasat Hour is not a local show. You can't—Percy! Come here. Talk some sense into her!"
Great, Maggie thought, as the chubbiest man on Megasat walked up wearing a silver smoking jacket and raised eyebrows. She downed the rest of her drink and gave Percy her best 'fix this' glare.
He smiled back, making the yen mark on his chin dimple and blink. "Hi, sexy. Don't tell me my meal tickets are arguing, now."
"He wants to fuck with my script, Percy."
"No," said Tom, intent on watching the ice in his glass rattle. "No, I do not touch your scripts, Maggie. You're brilliant. But when you go too far I can sink the skit entirely."
"Let me guess. This is the Starbanger skit, right?" When Tom nodded, Percy sidled close to him and took his empty drink. "I've got that figured out. We regionalize the scene."
"You can't film two different versions of a live broadcast."
"You can't, but as a brilliant director I can. We get two sets of robotic cameras in there. One films Maggie's body in all its luscious glory," he said, winking at her, "and the other sticks to prudish parts. Her face, curve of the thigh, below the knee and so on. The prude version goes out to the Revivalist territories, and the rest of the world jacks off to the good cut. What do you say?"
As he said this, Percy did a half turn and step with a grace that fat men could only master in low gravity. He slid Tom's glass onto an android's tray, grabbed a thin-stemmed champagne bulb, and passed it back to Tom in one smooth motion. The producer sipped, frowning. "The cameras will get in the frame."
"Nope, I've already run the simulations. It's handled."
"If she goes off script and there's so much as a nipple shown, I'll cut the feed, I swear."
Maggie fought the urge to punch him in the face. "Oh, come on. I'm more professional than that."
Both Percy and Tom laughed. They bent their heads together and argued about rigging the cameras to follow her inevitable rebellion. Bastards, thought Maggie, but she secretly rejoiced that the skit would at least be shot. Every week Tom started a fight over something. She was the showrunner, the executive producer, and as her liaison producer he had only one job; to run and tattle to the network whenever she went too far. Part of her enjoyed Tom's weekly treason. It was a sign that she still had her edge.
Her edge felt chipped, lately. Maggie took a fresh drink from an android, quaffed half of it, then stepped away to watch the party.
The reception ballroom had two levels. Below, the masses ate and danced and watched vids of her past shows. Three meters up her private dais stuck out, shaped like a flat porcelain hand karate-chopping the video wall. It wasn't as private as she'd have liked. Percy and Tom had to be there, of course, and there were a dozen or more television executives that she'd have to fire to be rid of. By the cloud of minicameras she could tell that in the midst of the executives was her adopted father, the only man in the room she liked.
Well, the only man she liked and wouldn't break.
Over the railing she watched seat-fillers, temporary staff, and the few paparazzi that could finagle their own private berth on the space elevator. Sheer dresses and cut-off tuxes were everywhere, the standard compromises between fashion and a strict weight allowance. Maggie wore her iridium-laced gown to these weekly functions. The weight and opacity of the fabric set her apart, even without the rainbow diffraction patterns at the edges of its smooth, silver curves.
A few fans saw her looking down at them, and they shouted and waved back. Maggie smiled and raised her drink. Then she threw it at one of the crowd, beaning him in the head and soaking him with gin. An android scavenged up the plastic wineglass before the crowd had stopped cheering. Maggie blew a kiss to the laughing victim, and turned away from the railing.
Audiences. They like to laugh, but they want to be shocked.
But despite her stage smile, abusing her fans wasn't cheering her up. She felt off, in a way she couldn't define. Not drunk, but not focused, not the laser-sharp TV host she needed to be. Maggie chided herself for not thinking of regionalizing the Starbanger skit; half the time she did Percy's job for him.
Percy could schmooze, though. He had the attention of this week's interview guest, an older man with a white collar. Maggie tried to remember his name through the fugue in her head. Some kind of bird. Warbler or Goose or something...
"Ah, miss Megaputri!", the man said as he stepped past Percy and offered his hand. "I'm Cardinal Lambert. It's a pleasure to meet you."
"Cardinal—of course! Ready for the show tomorrow?"
"Oh, how could one prepare for a show such as yours? But yes, I'm looking forward to it. I'm sure we'll have a great time."
"Why Cardinal, you almost make it sound like a date."
"I consider it a date with destiny, my dear."
Percy cleared his throat, then backed away when Maggie gave him a glance. She took the Cardinal's drink, sipped it, then returned it to him, with a pointed effort not to grimace at the non-alcoholic cola.
"It's a date then. Unfortunately, we'll have three billion chaperones. Not to mention God, I suppose."
"Yes, well. I was hoping to get a chance to talk to you without an audience, sometime. Do you have time tomorrow after the show?"
Out of reflex Maggie twitched her hand to bring up her schedule, but the iridium dress had no electronics. They would have ruined the lines of the thin, dense fabric. She tried to remember her calendar, but it was hard to focus. Megasat usually kept her busy...
A snippet of conversation distracted her. "...time to adjust her supplements, again..."
"What was that?" she asked, spinning around.
Percy was already gliding away, leaving Tom to stall her while he drained his glass. "Nothing, Mags," Tom said when he came up for air. "If you don't mind, I need to introduce the Cardinal to the network."
"I do mind. Tell the network perverts to get their own choir boy."
Percy put a hand on her shoulder, back already with a young man in tow. "Let Tom do his job. I've got someone I want you to meet."
Cardinal Lambert shrugged as Tom pulled at his elbow. "We'll talk later, Miss Megaputri," he said with a warm smile. Then he and Tom wove into the crowd.
Intending to rearrange the dimples on Percy's fat chin, Maggie turned around but found herself blocked by a swarthy man with attractive black curls.
"Mags, this is Vittor, the winner of the 'Lunch with the Stars'. Vittor, it's the lady herself."
"Oh, wow," Vittor said. Maggie guessed he was about her age—which meant he was almost too young to drink, let alone travel to space alone. "I can't believe I'm actually meeting you."
She put on her stage smile. "Believe it. Nice to meet you...Victor?"
"Vittor."
"Right." She glanced over to see Percy scooting away.
Maggie stared after her director as Vittor shifted uncomfortably. For a moment she considered running after him, with one stiletto heel in her hand as a weapon. But the curly-haired boy stepped back into her line of sight, and her hostess instincts kicked in.
He is pretty. The thought popped through the fog in her head, eerily crisp.
"Well, Victor," she said, "Welcome to Megasat. Where are you from?"
"Fortaleza, Brazil. Miss Megaputri, I am a huge fan. I never miss your show."
"Don't gush, I can't stand it. Most of the people on the satellite try to keep me humble."
"Oh. I'm sorry..."
"Nah, fuck 'em. They do a lousy job." She kept track of his wandering eyes—her face and breasts, before his guilty glance swung toward the video wall. "First time in orbit, honey?"
He exhaled, as if relieved that someone had chosen a topic of conversation. "Yes. It's not what I expected. Feels very...frontierish."
"We like it that way."
"This whole contest has been like a dream."
"Oh? Have you ever dreamt you were falling?" She led him closer to the video wall, and watched for his reaction.
He glanced at her for permission, then put his hands against the screen and stared at the image of Earth. The video wall showed the true view from Megasat, but it was time lapsed so that the party began with an image of dawn and would end with the globe in complete night. The darkness of the terminator was receding inland from the Chinese coast, and a wisp of a cyclone was forming near Guam in the northwest. It was a good time of day to see the space elevator, visible as wavering glints of reflected sunlight that traced a thin line down to the tiny island of Kajoa in the middle of Indonesia.
Maggie watched as Vittor scanned the globe, his expression changing from awe to embarrassment when he caught her studying him. He was cute, and pretty, even in his cheap cut-off tux. She could...but no. No, she had to be a hostess. He wasn't here to be her toy.
You break all the toys you like.
Still, his naiveté was charming and refreshing. For the first time in years, Maggie felt trapped inside the space station she called home.
"How is it, down there on Earth?" The question came out too breathy, she thought; if she were doing a show, the sound boys would have to tweak her feed. Before Vittor could reply she added a growl of cynicism to her voice. "It's been ages since I've been down, but I assume someone is keeping up the place."
Vittor nodded, his eyes wide. "Everything's good. The Global Rationalist party is running with the slogan of 'Utopia in our lifetimes'. I think it might actually happen. The hardships my grandfather used to talk about are gone. You've never visited?"
"Vacations are so hard to arrange. But we have our own little utopia here on Megasat. Would you like to see more of it?"
"Oh, yes. Yes I would!"
It was that easy, to smile and offer him the crook of her arm. As they left the party deck, Maggie's loins tingled as she thought of where she could take him. Places where she could...but no. Just a tour, just to play.
But there were knives in her bedroom...
No. No, her bedroom was the last place she would take him. The last place he should be.
He wants me, she thought, as they kissed outside the door to her quarters.
Not an excuse.
He wants this. And he did, trembling as he undid the zipper of her dress, groaning as she fondled his pants and nipped at his ear.
Not an excuse.
I am not going to hurt him, Maggie told herself as she pulled him back onto the bed.
Her quarters were in the outer ring of the station, in high centrifugal gravity, but Vittor was young and strong. The bed's predictive elastics tried to keep up with their motions before giving up and adopting the consistency of supple pudding. When his energy wasn't enough for her, she had the feral strength to roll him over and continue, bracing herself with the lacy web of stick fabric that adorned the aluminum walls.
She arched her back and ground against him, and he smiled up in amazement and awe.
He knows. He must know.
The portions of her life that could not be contained in storage lockers were held in the stickweb. Hand mirrors...extra jewelry...a golden award...an old stuffed bear...a silver knife, decorative but sharp.
I want this.
Not an excuse! said the part of her that was sated, that had been sated from the start, and with the frustration building in her body she whispered it aloud.
Without warning the dam broke, and she tore the knife from the wall and plunged it into his chest. His surprised gurgle met her cry of ecstasy. She held on and rode through the last of the sensations—he buried in her, the knife buried in him, the pair of them convulsing for entirely different reasons...
She fell forward, spent, and there was a second of stillness before her eyes opened and sense returned.
"Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no." She pulled the knife free, threw it aside. "No, no. Not again, Maggie, no!" She tapped his cheek, felt his neck for a pulse, even put her hand over the ragged red hole in his chest as if to hide it. "No, Victor, no. I'm sorry, please, be okay. Please?"
He lay motionless. After a few seconds Maggie rolled out of the spreading pool of blood and backed out of the bedroom. She fell onto the couch in the main suite, staring at her blood-covered hand and the red splashes across her torso.
Her head swam with a combination of exertion, alcohol, and guilt. For a moment she giggled at the thought of inventing a cocktail made from gin, sex, and murder. Then the horror came back. Maggie curled into a ball, and the couch adapted to her pose, wrapping itself around her. Soft, warm, and inviting. Safe.
A thump and a muffled curse woke her, although it took a few seconds before Maggie blinked open her eyes.
Before she managed to focus, someone cursed again. "Damn it, she's up."
"Eh, it's fine. She needs to get ready anyhow. It'll be easier this way."
"I don't want to be seen doing this!"
"Talk to the network. And here, take the droids. Hey? Mags?"
An obese object moved in front of Maggie's blurry vision. There was a blanket covering her that she didn't remember having; she wrapped it tight around her and sat up. "Percy? What are you doing here? I'm naked!"
"Funny," said someone behind Percy, "she's never shy about that when cameras are around."
"Shut it, Tom."
The fat man tried to put his hand on Maggie's shoulder, but with a grunt she dodged and shoved him aside.
The doorway leading into her bedroom was a slapstick tableau. A figure wrapped in a blood-stained bedsheet lay slumped on the floor, with one protruding foot held aloft by an android dressed in janitor's scrubs. Another android stood at the threshold after walking face first into the door frame and dropping its half of the dead body. Tom was staring into the eyeline control of the dumber android, jabbing his finger at buttons that only he could see.
Maggie tilted, and Percy grabbed her before she could collapse.
"Oh, god, I did it. Oh, oh..."
"Relax, Mags. We've got this."
"Oh, Percy I'm sorry I didn't mean to but the knife slipped and oh god I don't want to go to jail—"
"Maggie! We'll handle it, just like we always do. You need to calm down."
"I didn't wan—" His words sank in a second faster than her mouth could stop. She huddled into the blanket and gave him a look through long, innocent lashes. "What? What do you mean, 'like you always do'?"
Percy rolled his eyes. "We all know this happens, Mags. We know you don't mean it. And we'll clean up after you like last time. It's okay."
"But next time warn me so I don't stay up late the night before. I do not need to be up this early. All right, you, try again." Tom motioned for the two androids—now properly instructed—to pick up the body. He gave Percy a sour look as he marched his charges and their cargo out the door.
Maggie felt cold and her legs shook. Her head was even fuzzier than last night; every time she tried to concentrate, her body seemed to go numb. She went back to the couch and sat. "You know about last time?"
"Yes, Mags. We know about all of them."
"...there's only been two."
