He grabbed the lattes and started walking. “Yeah. It’s called a door limiter. I looked it up and everything. Cool, huh?”
“Why do you have one of these in your car?”
“Roscoe took us partying last week.”
She waited, but he just sipped his latte as if that explained everything.
“What? They were handing these out as party favors?”
Ted chortled, snorting out coffee. “Good one. No, see. Seventh Day Inventists—you know them?”
“The heavy metal band that uses power tools in their music?”
“The very ones. So they were having this after gig thing in their hotel, and they wanted to try out a work in progress on us. Manny had the circular saw, and he was so wasted... Well, the door was ruined anyway, so when Bob finished with his power drill solo, I just helped myself.”
“You stole a door lock.”
“Limiter. What a hoot, huh? I mean, everyone was grabbing souvenirs. Had to act fast, or I’d have gotten a splinter or something lame. Roscoe said this happens every time they hold a hotel party. Their manager pays for the damage ahead of time.”
She glanced from him to the door lock—door limiter, she told herself. Then she grabbed her latte from him and took a large swallow. Caffeine. She needed caffeine to keep up with this conversation. When she thought she felt a kick, she started again.
“And why are you giving this to me?”
They walked up the two steps to the building, and Ted pulled open the door. A blast of air conditioning caressed his hair as he went in, Neeta following.
“I’m not the knick-knack type.”
“So?”
“Well, I sobered up, and I realized I can’t use this thing. I’m in an apartment where I can’t even put a nail in the wall. I should have gone for the safety procedures sign—I could have had them autograph it and stuck it up with poster tape. Live and learn.”
“So why are you giving this to me?”
He shrugged. “You own a door.”
* * * *
Dave lurked around the corner and watched as Neeta and Ted entered the conference room. Neeta was shaking her head and snickering as she shoved something into the pocket of the loose long vest she wore over a tank top and shorts. She pushed open the door easily and sailed in, clearly in a good mood.
Dave nodded. Much better. Neeta had nearly clipped his car pulling into the parking lot and drove on by, oblivious to his horn blast. When he saw her schlepping to the cantina, he’d called Sharon to do something about it. The last thing he’d needed was his star host in a funk on today of all days, when he was about to unveil his grand finale. Most stars would have a snit fit—Neeta would more likely express her objections with a chainsaw.
Sharon had sent Ted after her.
He again congratulated himself on his choice of personal assistant. Brilliant. Sharon was simply brilliant. Such a masterful judge of character—almost on par with him. A little flighty at times, what with her new rabbit craze, he thought as glanced behind him to see her swaying and lightly stroking the scene on her DoDroid, but otherwise...
I should do something nice for her, he thought as he went through his pre-meeting routine. Something relaxing before we go to New Orleans for ZDE II.
As he jogged slightly to get the blood flowing and shook out the tension in his arms, he ran over ideas. When was that Day of the Dead celebration in Mexico? Nice irony there. Could be fun.
Nah. Something different. Unrelated, but bigger. White water rafting? Scaling the half dome at Yosemite? Did she do mountain climbing? He could get her a guide. Nah, still too small.
Personal, he chided himself. Got to make it personal. She likes bunnies...
“Sharon, baby. There are rabbits in Australia, right?”
She looked up, caught by surprise for once. “Sir?”
He held out his hand. She slapped his drink into it. He guzzled it down, thinking, Safari in the Outback. Lots of wildlife. Camping. Camping’s relaxing right? I’ll have to get Lida to make the arrangements.
Right now, though, got to focus. The producer is there. Even more, Neeta is there.
He swallowed the last, belched loudly and handed her the bottle. She took it and slapped his DoDroid into his hands, his talking notes already called up. He had to sell this and sell it big.
“Let’s do this.”
He pushed open the conference doors and strode in, his hands raised in victory.
“People, it’s finale time!”
All conversation stopped, all eyes turned to him. Energy and anticipation crackled in the room. He held his pose a moment longer, not looking at them, merely taking in the energy like a god accepting homage. He lived for this.
“We will give our viewers a thrill that will leave them glued to their seats—yes, even if their own homes are invaded by zombies, they will not want to miss a single minute. For we are going...back to the warehouse!”
“Okay,” Neeta said mildly.
“There will be more suspense, more harrowing twists as our intrepid apprentices face the scene of their greatest tragedy—the death of one of their own. This isn’t just for our viewers, however. It’s for our own people. A chance for vengeance, a chance to confront their fears—”
“Sounds good,” she added.
“Now hear me out! This is just what the—” He cut off his spiel as his brain caught up with his ears. He turned to Neeta.
“Did you say, ‘okay’?”
Neeta shrugged. “I’ve been thinking about it for awhile. Vengeance is dangerous—play it on the commercials, but not on my plebes—but they do need to come face to face with the situation again. I don’t want them to have a similar environment in the future and choke where there’s no safety net.” Her voice hardened. “We will have a safety net.”
Dave blinked. He could not believe his luck. He scrolled down his notes, moving past argument and counter argument, nodding distractedly as she pulled out her own pad and read off the safety protocols she wanted in place this time.
Alberts, the producer, cleared his throat. “What’s all that going to cost?”
Neeta raised an eyebrow at Sharon, who rattled off some figures.
He scowled. “What if we use animatronics again?”
“No,” both Neeta and Dave chorused. When they met each other’s eyes, they saw they mirrored each others’ bemused grins.
The producer shrugged. “Can we get this done in a week?”
Neeta said, “I’ve talked to ZERD. They have plenty of experimental AH foam ready. I went back through the warehouse last week and have marked the best areas for traps and safe zones.”
“The Sam Richards’ Destroy-Rebuild crew is available this week,” Sharon added. “Sam’s apparently out with an infected hand from a splinter he got at some party. Grabbing a souvenir, his assistant Allison said?”
Ted choked on his latte.
“Anyway, they said they’d do it and film it as a special if we let them tear some stuff down in the process.”
Dave beamed at his assistant. Genius. Definitely an Outback safari. He wondered if he could schedule some rock climbing and white-water rafting, too?
Again, he spread his hands, offering them his blessings. “Well, then, people—what are we waiting for? Let’s make some magic.”
After six hours of pouring over three-dimensional schematics of the warehouse, psychological and character assessments of the plebes, and reports from ZERD on their latest “crop” of zombies, they had designed a great episode of “capture the flag,” zombie-style. They decided to split the plebes into teams of two, Dave nearly having a paroxysm of joy when Wang suggested they invite Lacey in to team with Spud.
Neeta, however, nearly jumped out of her chair. “Are you people out of your mind? What part of ‘keeping everyone alive’ wasn’t clear? She’s injured—and you want to set her against a horde of zombies.”
Wang shrugged. “Thanks to nanite knitting, broken bones take about two weeks to heal. I know
because I busted my hand last year, and was back on the job by then.”
Neeta leaned over and spoke with deceptive calm. “Wang, what do you do for a living?”
“Uh, screenwriter?”
“Screenwriter. As a screenwriter, how much heavy lifting do you do with that wrist?”
“Er…”
“If I’d given you a 15-pound chain saw to swing about for half an hour, how would that newly-healed wrist of yours hold out? Enough that you’d be able to take on the zombie that waited thirty-two minutes before attacking?”
He looked at the table.
She turned to Wang’s partner. “Gary, how fast have we seen zombies run?”
Gary almost jumped when she called on him, but relaxed. He knew this one. “They’ve been recorded as fast as 15 miles an hour—and they don’t tire.”
She nodded then leaned back to take in the whole group. “Yet you want to send in a recently injured, still lame girl to battle them. Do you want Spud to lose? Because most likely, you’ll lose your knight and your damsel—permanently.”
Dave threw his hands in the air. “Fine, then, who do we put in?”
“Ted.”
“What?” Dave gaped at her, then paused, thinking.
“Huh?” Ted looked up from where he’d been dabbing his spat-out latte with a napkin.
“Ted?” Alberts gasped. “The cameraman? You don’t want to send an experienced exterminator in, but you’ll send Ted?”
Neeta nodded. “He’s been training with me privately for the past few weeks and with the crew the whole series. In the warehouse and the 9-1-1 call, he showed good instincts and courage.”
Alberts opened his mouth to protest, but Dave shrieked.
“I’m seeing it, really! The unlikely candidate. The wild card. We have outtake footage—we’ll make some flashbacks… Chills. I’m getting chills! Are you getting chills?”
The rest of the crew responded with silence until Ted purred, “Oh, yeah.”
“Beautiful,” Dave gushed. “Neeta, baby, we’re making music, sweet music. I can’t say enough wonderful words. Oh, crap!” His expression turned from ecstasy to panic. “We’re going to be late. Sharon, get Neeta to wardrobe and find her something less casual—and call the car.”
“Why?” Neeta asked.
He grinned. “Small surprise. You’ll love it. Sharon will take care of you. Hurry now. We’re going to be late. Too much synergy in this room, totally threw my time sense. Sharon, baby—Australian outback wildlife—summary in my pad tomorrow.”
“Where are we going?” she demanded, but Dave was calling out orders in quick succession to the rest of the staff.
Sharon put a hand on her shoulder, and Neeta followed her out.
“Sharon,” Neeta protested as they headed down the busy hall to wardrobe. Sharon was calling up nature videos of Australia on her DoDroid, navigating the turns and opening doors automatically.
Neeta said. “I don’t like surprises. Surprises usually mean I have to kill something.”
Sharon shuddered, but it seemed to be at something on her screen.
“Sharon!”
She typed some commands into her pad, and said without looking up, “The Tonight Show had a guest cancel. Miley Cyrus’s hair nanites are still malfunctioning—can’t decide if she’s blonde or brunette. Completely confuses her performance. I hate snakes.” She moaned.
“So?”
“First zombies, now snakes. I don’t sleep at night. Did you know I don’t sleep at night?” She muttered more than spoke to Neeta. Her hands never stopped calling up video after video of extreme animals—snakes and crocodiles, a kangaroo lashing out with its legs at a tourist, a spider the size of her hand.
Neeta set her palm over the image of a bushwhacker about to strike the camera. “Sharon?” she asked.
Sharon blinked. “Um, sorry. Right. The Tonight Show with Rus Mobi needs a guest. You and Dave are on. You get ten minutes to talk finale and zombie extermination. You want something practical and tough but sexy—do you like leather pants? No? Well, Colleen will set you up. I’ll give you some talking notes as you change—but don’t tell Dave. He likes to surprise people.”
They entered the wardrobe room and Colleen met Neeta with a hug and dragged her to a rack full of “tough, practical but sexy” clothes, which mostly ran to leather and microweave plastidenim. Sharon trailed behind.
“Bunnies. Something with bunnies,” she muttered. “Spiders, poisonous lizards... I need a new job.”
* * * *
Backstage, Dave nudged Neeta as they waited for Rus to finish his monologue about the Twitter movement to get Conan to host the show again.
“Surprised?” he asked, grinning like a schoolboy.
“Very.” Neeta grinned back, but she thought it probably looked more sickly than surprised.
Onstage, Rus said, “All I’m saying is that being able to tell a joke in a hundred and forty characters or less might not be the best of qualifications.” The audience laughed.
She did not want to be there, especially wearing tight plastidenim pants. At least she’d talked Sharon into letting her get a company polo shirt from the car. The tight-sleeved lace blouse and leatherish vest Colleen suggested might have been good, if she were Miley Technicolor Cyrus, but if she was going to talk zombie extermination, she wanted to look professional.
Rus wrapped up his monologue and reaped in the applause. “Listen, we have a great surprise for you tonight. I know you were expecting to see Senator Cyrus, but she had an unforeseen emergency.”
He paused for the staged “awwww”s.
“Yes, it was a hair-raising ordeal.”
Rim shot and laughter.
“Anyway, we have a treat for you tonight. You’ve been watching Zombie Death Extreme, right? Right? All right. That’s what I’m talking about. Well, you know the season is about to end, and the finale promises to be the best ever. Here to talk about it is reality TV Czar David Lor, and the Queen of the Zombie Exterminators herself, Neeta Lyffe!”
The band struck up the theme song to Zombie Death Extreme, and as directed, Dave and Neeta walked across the stage to the seats. Dave moved in a bouncy half-trot, waving, blowing kisses and generally playing the crowd, while the audience chanted “Lor! Lor!” Neeta followed, hand up in a shy wave, wondering if her face was glowing red through what felt like a layer of paint the make-up crew had plastered on her face.
Suddenly, Dave rushed back to her, grabbed her arm and held it up, like a victorious prizefighter. The crowd roared its approval.
Neeta gritted her teeth into a smile.
After what seemed an eternity of standing center stage, feeling like Dave’s prize show dog, he lowered her hand, and still holding it, led her to their host. Rus leaned over the desk to shake their hands. Dave gave her the seat closest to Rus then took the one next to her.
“Dave, Neeta, thanks for being here. Dave, congratulations on another great show.”
He paused for the applause.
“Neeta, I love what you do and the flair with which you do it. You can protect my house anytime. But the backyard...”
He paused while people laughed at the lighthearted reference to her lawsuit.
Neeta tried to keep the snarl out of her voice. “Well, Rus, are you planning on inviting any zombies to a bar-be-que?”
“Uh, no. I’d rather serve the food than be the meal.”
Remembering Sharon’s briefing, Neeta waited for the swell of laughter to start dying then spoke over it. “Then you should be fine, but the fact of the matter is, nearly half the zombie attacks in America are what we call ‘targeted attacks.’ That means someone has done something to draw them out—like serving pickled beets outside near a graveyard.”
“So you’re saying these can be prevented?”
She grimaced but didn’t pause in her answer. Sharon had warned her. Talk about the show and you can get your points across. Dave likes to sit quietly like he’s just there to support the stars. Get
off the show or hesitate, and he’ll take over.
“Well, in the case of the zombie LaCenta took down, who was a murder victim come back for revenge, sure. However, in general, the answer is Yes and No. We still don’t know what causes the dead to rise, so there’s no preventing that except with spinal severing after death. Nonetheless, yes, there are ways to prevent zombies from making a beeline to you pool party.”
“Is it true one yelled, ‘Cannonball!’ as it jumped into Twiddle’s pool?”
Neeta smiled, sweetly feral. “I wouldn’t know. I was trying to extract my chainsaw from some vermin’s prosthetic arm. Fortunately, it didn’t swim well.”
Dave shifted position—slightly, but enough to draw Rus’s attention—and Neeta knew she’d spoiled her chance.
Rus said to Dave, “So, here we are—a week away from the final episode of Zombie Death Extreme. What can you tell us?”
“Three words: location, location, location,” Dave teased.
Rus leaned forward. “You got to give us more than that.”
Dave tossed his hands in mock helplessness. “We just left a major strategy session. Details are still in the works—”
“Give us the broad sweep. Anything. Come on. We’re dying to know—aren’t we?” Rus directed the last toward the studio audience, who obliged with applause and hoots.
“Well...” Dave hedged, tossing a brief glance at Neeta, is if seeking permission they both knew he neither needed or wanted. “I can say this: Our dear, departed Bergie will at last be avenged.”
This time, the audience needed no prompting to explode into thunderous applause. As Dave lapped it up, the whole time with a humble, self-depreciating expression, Neeta tried to keep her own face neutral.
Inside, she wondered yet again what had possessed her to join this circus.
Dave monopolized the rest of their ten minutes, so Neeta only managed to get one more comment in. Even that came out as a lame reassurance that her plebes were smart enough now they wouldn’t get themselves killed for points. She thought she’d heard actual expressions of disappointment in the audience. Fortunately, Rus then introduced the next guest, an up-and-coming singer/actress Kirstie Stone. Thrilled to share her time with a couple of reality show people instead of her competition, she kept up a spark-ling and vibrant dialogue, flirting with Dave and preening for Rus and the camera. Neeta sat back and tried to look interested until the theme song played, they made their last waves, and she was released.
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