The Weapon - Lex - part 24
By Diana the Valkyrie
The meeting
Update: 08/11/2003 to valkyrie05


Her office opened into a meeting room, there were already several people
sitting around the table. The Guardian, I mean, Wendy. I mean, Sandy, sat
down, and already I can see the benefits of keeping my mouth such. My mobile
vibrated, I pulled it out and had a look. It was a message. "Damn right. SG."
I looked across the table at her; she took no notice of me. My mobile vibrated
again. ">wink<" it said. I looked up at Sandy, she was still talking with the
guy next to her. So even when she's in her Sandy Gentle form, she can
communicate with my mobile. Handy. I punched back "Speak no evil." She smiled
at the guy she was talking to, but I was sure that smile was for me. Then she
knuckled a water glass, and everyone stopped talking. "Purpose of meeting,"
said Sandy, "and this is a very quick meeting; I just want to tell you that
we'll be making fifty new disks over the next month."

There was obvious consternation around the table, I got the feeling that this
was a lot. But I noticed that no-one was disagreeing. Sandy unrolled a big
chart on the table, and everyone started examining it. "Schedule," she said.

"So, any problems," she continued, "let's hear about them now and sort them
out." "Uh, first problem, Sandy, who's gonna be the star?" "Me, who else? I
want to get heavy sales out of this, so we use our best pull. That's me."
"Sandy, fifty disks, each one will take a week to shoot, how can we do it in a
month? Doesn't make sense" "We'll do them in parallel. And we won't do
multiple takes, it'll be right first time. 90% of the time. Retakes only when
really needed, not just to see if the scene can play better. I won't miss my
lines, you know I never do. And if one of the guys fumbles, who cares? So, a
one hour disk, should shoot in two hours. If I do half a dozen each day, we
can have the lot wrapped up in nine days."

"What about the editing," said another guy. "Get in some temp editors," Sandy
said, "buy a few dozen computers to edit on. Harry, get the duping facilities
booked. Jemma, get the artwork rolling. People, we can do this, I know we
can."

The meeting dissolved into chaos, but I could see that they weren't talking
about why they couldn't do it, they were talking about how they would do it,
what they needed and when. I compared Sandy Gentle's leadership style with Ms
Cattermole's abrasive demanding. Both of them asked for the impossible, but
Sandy was getting it. She didn't order, she inspired. She'd just committed
herself to more than a week of twelve hour days, the others could hardly do
less.

"We don't have enough co-stars," said one of them, "you know how long it takes
them to recover." "So contact the agencies. You think it's going to be really
tough finding a few hundred guys who want their brains fucked out by Sandy
Gentle?" Everyone laughed, and then someone said "Scripts?" They fell silent,
and looked at Sandy. "Hey, what's the problem? We only ever shoot one story,
it's all variations on the theme. Boy meets girl, falls in love, problem
arises, boy loses girl, girl fucks around, boy gets girl back, happy ever
after. Doctors and nurses, college kids, office setting, farmer's wife, you
know the variations." I thought about the Sandy Gentle disks I had, and she
was right. You didn't buy them for the storyline, really, although they did
leave you with a warm feeling. You got them because you wanted to see Sandy
Gentle.

Someone said "costumes", and someone else said "I'm on it." Someone else said
"Promos, under control." There was a lot like that, I didn't understand most
of it, but they seemed to be sorting out a plan of action. Then a guy in a
suit said "Finance." and everyone shut up, and looked at Sandy. "How much,"
she said. "I figure ten mil," he replied. "And we have?" she asked. "Four," he
replied. "Marketing, what's the projected sales?" asked Sandy. "Uh. A lot."
"Quantify." "Well, Christmas is coming." "And the goose is getting fat.
Quantify." "OK, they go for two hundred bucks apiece, distro gets 50%, we make
a hundred on each, we can also sell them as complete sets, there's fifty
disks, we mail out everyone who ever bought a Sandy disk, special offer 50%
off if you buy direct and then we avoid the distro percentage, we can saturate
the market, the media will go wild, we do clips on the net, no-one buys
anything except Sandy Gentle disks for Santa's bag, um, maybe clear ten
billion?" "Five," said Sandy, "John, can you borrow six mil against projected
sales of five billion?" "Yeah, in my sleep, they'll snatch my hand off." "OK,
as long as your sleepy hand stays off my snatch," said Sandy. "Offhand, I was
hoping to snatch some sleep this year." "Sleep next year," she said.

Everyone grinned. "Anything else, people?" asked Sandy. Silence. "OK, meeting
closed," she said.

Wow. What a contrast from the meetings at Roberts and Williams, which lasted
hours and rarely accomplished anything useful. Sandy stood up, and looked at
me. "Office," she said. I followed her. She shut the door, and said, "Well?"
"I'm impressed," I replied, "you're not just a pretty face and an
extraordinary figure." "The face and figure's just an emulation, same as the
Wendy one. Underneath, I'm still one of the People, and I'm doing all this for
you." "For me?" "Damn language, doesn't have a second person plural. For
you-all. I'm doing it for my babies, for all my babies. What did you think,
it's all about diverting asteroids?"

I thought a moment, that's the second time she's mentioned asteroids. "Hey.
Wait a moment. A couple of years ago, the newsfeeds were full of this G-7628
rock that was going to hit the planet and we'd go the same way the dinosaurs
went. And then they measured the orbits more carefully and announced that it
was going to miss." She just watched me. "You didn't ... I mean, did you ... I
mean, surely someone would have noticed ..." "I don't have to look like this.
Or like Wendy. In my canonical form, you'd need a pretty good microscope to
see me." "So it was you?" She nodded. "How come no-one knew?" "Because I
didn't tell them. And that's another thing you have to keep your mouth shut
about." "Why didn't you tell them?" "Why should I tell them. Why would anyone
need to know?" "Because if no-one knows, then no-one will thank you, no-one
will realise how important you are to us." "I don't do it for the gratitude. I
don't do it to be important." "So why ... oh. Because you love us?" "Yes.
Because that's what I do. And I don't want a Church of the Holy Guardian, with
hymns and prayers and stuff. Nor do I want humans to get the idea that there's
someone who will bail them out of every problem they get, you have to look
after yourselves." "Except when we can't." "Except when you can't, right."
"And then momma makes it better." "What? No, I fix it, my momma isn't ..., oh,
I see what you mean. Yes, I make it better."

This is just so different from what I expected. Heroes get medals, right?
Apparently not. Heroes, real heroes, you never find out what they did. "So,
we're done here," she said, "feel hungry?" The day had been too exciting for
me to notice anything as mundane as that, but now that she mentioned it.
"Food, sex and money," I said. "I'd like to get laid, I'm going to need a new
job, but the priority right now is to convince my stomach that my throat
hasn't been cut." She smiled. "You like curry?" she asked.