Fic: UNN [Part One]
Title: UNN
Author/Artist: Jamaica-tan
Character(s) or Pairing(s): Francis/Arthur as main, and various others
Rating: R to be safe.
Genre: Comedy/Romance/Drama
Warnings: swearing, buckets of innuendo, Francis.
Summary: Welcome to the United Nations News Network, the world's best, first, only and worst international news channel! Can the channel handle co-presenters that hate each other? Can Ludwig contol his insane employees? FrUk and other pairings.
Prologue link inside!
Introduction - 2006 has been the worst year in the history of ever.
Note: Just a reminder that this story, particularly the FrUK storyline, is based off ‘Shakespeare ReTold’s Much Ado about Nothing’ so I will be using some lines/scenes from that film. If I forget to credit any other references please remind me.
[“dialogue”] is words over intercom or microphone.
EDIT: Because I'm an idiot that never should upload a story when tired, I forgot to thank my betas Redundant Goddess and koholint. You guys rawk :3
Part 1 - Erection Day
20th September, 2010.
“On this day in 1990, UNN (United Nations News Network), the world’s most controversial news channel, was born. It started as a small experimental satellite channel by two eccentric billionaires, and after moving to a more widespread service, it is now one of the most popular and despised news channels in the world. Everybody and their dog knows about this news channel, but my esteemed editor seemed to think the 20th anniversary of the channel, which was started and still runs in our fair city of London, was worth a mention in our paper.
For those who’ve been living in a hole for the past 20 years I will enlighten you about this strange channel’s origins: in 1989 two best friends, a German industrial mogul Valamir Beilschmidt and an Italian, Romulus Vargas (whose money is rumoured to come from shady business interests), decided to start a news channel whose sole aim was to be truly international, to report events from across the globe without any national or political ties to cause bias. As they were both living in London at the time, they decided it would make sense to set up here, and to gather a team of news and media specialists from across the world to reinforce the message of neutrality.
This ‘international’ news and staff policy is still in force, and I will concede that the dozens of news awards won globally mean that they must be doing something right, but here I can reveal my suspicions that there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark.
The station is still owned by Beilschmidt/Vargas, but nowadays they rarely step over the threshold of their company; Valamir having gone an extended sabbatical/holiday (3 years so far and counting), while Romulus seems content to drift around the world, photographed with supermodels clinging to him. Very professional. However, there is a third owner - a Chinese businessman, Wang Yao, who is trying to instil some order into the company on the business side, and the day-to-day running is left to Ludwig Beilschmidt, the younger of Valamir’s grandsons. His elder brother Gilbert runs and hosts ‘The Awesome Hour’ (currently on holiday), a show so stupid I won’t go into detail. Vargas’s grandsons, Lovino and Feliciano, run the Public Relations department, the success of which swings wildly between ditzy incompetence and eye-popping fury at any question asked.
The most popular programme on the channel is the early evening news, which for the past four years has been co-presented by Arthur Kirkland, the sole British face of the channel, who tries desperately to hide his public-schoolboy personality and pretend he’s merely of the middle-class, and the venerable television news veteran Sebastiano De Luca, who looks like he’s long past retirement age and is now skidding towards the grave.
Art film geeks will be interested to know that the director of the programme is Ivan Braginsky, the man who a few years ago directed the award-winning ‘The Comedy of the Tragedy of the Post-Soviet Human Condition’ on a three-week trip back to his homeland of Russia. Despite making several other successful, disturbing, and vague films, he’s stayed at the channel. Rumours abound that he’s a mini-Stalin that rules the place.
Before De Luca joined the team, Kirkland’s co-presenter for nearly two years was Francis Bonnefoy, who always had a vague air of non-discriminatory sexual harassment about him - in other words, your typical Frenchman. Needless to say there are various online campaigns to bring him back, as if there was not enough eye-candy at the station, which brings me to my main problem.
I know I’m not a supermodel, but in the news industry you can be successful and average looking; but at UNN the job specification seems to be foreign, young and attractive. Many industry insiders have also heard shocking things about the in-fighting at the channel. Where normally media types would happily stab their friend in the back for a few minutes in power, at UNN the biggest concern seems to be keeping track of who is sleeping with who each day, with occasional holiday office orgies ---”
“Right, I’m not reading any more, what a load of old crap,” Arthur tossed the newspaper aside. “I should burn that later - and what exactly crawled up that hack’s arse to make him so bitter about the channel?”
“He’s just jealous that he doesn’t work here,” Alfred said around a mouthful of ice cream, slouched on the studio sofa next to Arthur, “You know everyone wants to be us!”
“Don’t talk when you eat, Alfred, it’s disgusting.”
“Well you know it’s true because he hasn’t even mentioned me! Talk about lazy work! I’m super popular!” The American tossed the ice cream stick behind him, hitting an unlucky studio hand in the head.
Arthur was now rifling through his notes, “h you’re in there all right - it’s just not very flattering so I wouldn’t read if I was you.”
“Ah ha, sounds like you’re jealous!” Alfred grabbed the newspaper from his friend’s side. Arthur didn’t stop him but watched with an eyebrow raised as Alfred read the article, smiling slightly when he began to turn red.
“ ‘IQ of a hamburger’ ?”
“I told you, and don’t do anything stupid because practically everyone here gets in the neck from this hack. He’s nicest about Ivan but also called him Stalin... Ivan will find him in time.”
“That’s true,” Alfred muttered, “Then there’s that comment about Denmark.”
“ ‘Something rotten in the state of Denmark,’? I don’t think Nikolaj would be happy to read that; even if it’s Shakespearean it still sounds like a jibe, and I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t want to anger a tall Norseman with a giant axe...” Arthur trailed off.
“Totally,” Alfred agreed.
After a beat, Alfred suggested, “Maybe we should put him in front of that journalist’s office then show him the piece.”
“Good idea.”
A pretty brown-haired woman with a headset and clipboard approached them. “You two have everything you need? Alfred, you’ll need to move in a second, Mr De Luca is coming.”
“Yeah yeah,” The tall blond picked up the paper and stood, waving it tauntingly. “You seen this, Liz?”
“Nope,” Elizaeveta’s eyes were giving the studio a calculative sweep, searching for any imperfections. “I don’t read those, but I’ve heard of what was written... though I can tell you I do know that the guy that wrote that got left with a big bill when Gilbert found his credit card and put it behind the bar at our last Christmas party.”
“Well that explains a lot.”
“Hurry up!”
“Okay okay!” Alfred finally moved to the other side of the studio to his seat.
Just then an elderly man with a walking stick approached the beige sofa.
“Evening Arthur,” he said as he sat, quietly tucking his cane out of camera shot before adjusting his microphone, “I see you’re all still fuming about that silly article; I haven’t laughed so much in my life!”
“It’s slander, that’s what it is. Somebody should sue.”
“You should know that suing in this industry is career suicide - just laugh it off and make sure Ludwig knows about the article so that the channel will never feed that rag of a paper any news ever again.”
Arthur considered this while looking into the black camera lens, trying to fix his hair “Good point.”
Elizaveta came back, fingers tapping nervously on her headset. “Okay guys, are you ready? We’re starting in 30.”
[#Inside the (SCR) Studio Control Room#]
[“Liz, my throat is still sore I need another ice cream!”]
[“Don’t call me Liz, and if you took your cold medicine properly you would be better by now!”]
[“But, Liz~”]
Ludwig had had enough and pressed the buttons for Liz and Alfred’s earpieces, “Shut up Alfred, you yell too much and that’s why your throat is still sore, so save your voice for your segment.”
There was a strange childlike giggle beside Ludwig as Ivan’s hands worked expertly on the switch board without his eyes leaving the screen. “Perhaps if he ate properly and left those disgusting burgers...”
“That’s enough Ivan, and not a word from you, Alfred.” Ludwig ignored the muttered
[“Shut your face, Commie fatsicle,”] from the American’s microphone to look at the two men that were actually on the cameras. “Arthur, stop playing with your hair, you look fine.”
“Ten seconds everyone.” One of the studio room producers, Toris, held the stopwatch. There was a rapid increase in noise and bustle as everyone in the room and studio rushed to check everything was perfect.
“Roll credits.”
“Nine...
“Are the colours right?”
“Eight...”
“A little washed out, turn down the brightness a touch...”
“Seven...”
“Sound check?”
“Everything is correct.”
“Six...”
[“Green room and makeup, be ready for final touch-ups two minutes before guests cues,”] Kiku said over the tannoy.
“Five...” The room fell silent; only the director could speak now. Ivan’s eyes remained fixed on the screen - for the next hour, this was his world.
“...camera two, centre is off by a degree... that’s good. Arthur, fix your tie; everyone ready? Good...cue De Luca.”
.....26 minutes later.......
“Thank you Eduard for that insightful report.” Arthur turned from the monitor to face the camera with a small smile.
“Very insightful, who would have guessed that the environmental impact figures of computers could be so great?”
“Not I. However, later in the programme we will speak to representatives of both EnviroTech and Pineapple .co to hear both sides of this debate.”
“For now, we...we-w-we...”
Arthur glanced away from the camera to see De Luca’s face quickly draining of all colour to an ashen grey, and then clenched his left shoulder and fell off the couch.
For a moment Arthur stared disbelieving at the older man twitching on the floor before remembering they were still on air. He looked up, saw the crew frozen in shock and the glint of the camera lens, and saw red.
“What the hell do you lot think you’re doing! Cut! Call an ambulance! Go to the weather!”
With that the camera quickly cut to a small room where a blond man was sat on a chair quietly eating a sandwich and reading a book in front of a blank screen. This continued for a few seconds before a blaring sound apparently erupted so suddenly from the young man’s ear that he fell off his chair and out of sight of the camera.
“What-what? I’m on air? Now?” There was a scrabbling sound and the occasional flash of blond hair before the man stood, frantically fixing his tie and glasses while trying not to drop his remote for the screen. The screen lit up and promptly began to fast-forward through random graphics.
“Hello, good evening, I’m Matthew Williams and here is the weekend weather!”
.
18th September, morning.
Arthur only had to wait outside inconspicuously for a few minutes before Ludwig arrived, and together they made their way inside. While inside the lift, Arthur enquired after De Luca.
“Well... the good news is that he’ll recover eventually, but he’ll be under care for a very long time; he also said we should consider the heart attack as his retirement notice.”
“Oh, that’s terrible - he’s not in one of those awful NHS hospitals is he?”
“No, he’s at The Duke of Wellesley private clinic, the place with the therapeutic mood lighting.”
“That’s good,” Arthur allowed for a respectful pause before getting to what he really wanted to know. “So this will mean that I will be presenting the programme solo, then?”
“Yes, well,” Ludwig looked a little uncomfortable, “Only for two weeks, and then your new co-presenter will arrive.”
Bollocks. Oh well, must soldier on. “Bringing someone in, or re-organizing the team?”
“Bringing someone in; however, he’s not exactly new, as he has worked here before...”
“Oh I see; anyone I know?”
The lift pinged before the doors opened, and they made their way towards the meeting rooms.
“He’s an excellent journalist; he’s worked across the world and is very highly regarded in the international news community. He’s also known for his charisma, which has made him very popular with viewers.”
“That’s nice, so who is he?”
Ludwig seemed very uncomfortable, but he put on a smile for Arthur; but then Arthur saw it. The slight facial tic; the tic that meant his boss was trying to cover extreme stress and put off impending disaster... now Arthur knew that in his professional life he managed to maintain various good links so it made no sense for Ludwig to be nervous, unless he was stupid enough to -
Arthur halted, colour draining from his face. “You haven’t.”
The smile quickly left, and the blond sighed, “Arthur -”
“You wouldn’t.”
“He’s one of the best -”
“Don’t give me that excuse, you know how I feel about that - that French wino! Withdraw the offer!”
“He’s already signed the contract.”
“Tear it up!”
“You know that isn’t possible.”
Fists clenched tightly, he had to resist the urge to punch Ludwig, but said instead, “Since you’re so keen to sign people up, you should find yourself another co-presenter.” With that he spun around and stormed off towards his office.
“Arthur -”
“Don’t even bother!”
.
Late in the afternoon, Arthur was perfectly happy feeling sorry for himself on the sofa of one of the smaller empty studios, when he heard one of the doors open. He looked up and saw Ludwig approaching with his usual stoic expression and holding Arthur’s favourite mug; and from the steam coming from it, it was probably a lovely cup of tea - a peace offering. Damn Ludwig.
“Thought no one would find me here,” he muttered when Ludwig sat next to him, but accepted the offered mug of tea.
“One of the responsibilities of being the boss is always knowing where your employees are. It’s so I know you’re working, but sometimes I’ve woken up in the night because I just know that one of you has been thrown out of a seedy nightclub.”
“Huh.” Arthur sourly took a sip of the tea. It was perfect. Damn Ludwig.
“Can’t you just, I dunno, staple a blow-up doll to the sofa? No one would notice the difference.”
“Arthur,” the younger man sighed and rubbed his temples, “can’t you be more professional about it? He’s very popular and it would bring in more of the general female demographic.”
“If more women are tuning in just to view that frog then I say we don’t need those kind of idiots; and I am a bloody professional, because unlike him I’d hand in a proper notice when I wanted to leave, instead of jetting off to north Africa with a scribbled note left with Antonio!”
“That was unprofessional, but he’s still very successful and newly available... if we didn’t get him, he’d be hired by one of our rivals, and we can’t afford that.”
“Well, thanks, nice to know since he left we’ve been sinking into the mud.”
“You know I don’t mean that, but when you two were working together the ratings for the early evening news were at their peak; surely you know that you two had great chemistry.”
“There was nothing between us!”
There was a weary sigh. “If you say nothing else after this conversation, I’ll triple your personal allowance.”
Arthur looked at him in surprise. “Really? No catches?” He immediately thought of Vash the Finances Manager: frugal, bad tempered, and rather trigger happy by the look of the loving framed photos of guns in his office. Ludwig was obviously thinking of Vash as well, by the way he clenched his jaw and straightened slightly. “For a year.”
Jesus; this was a big deal.
“Okay,” he said finally, “But if he ever comes onto me I’m going to maim him.”
“Nothing above the neck, and no broken hands.”
“Deal.”
.
27th September.
“Your first day of your first real job, how are ya feelin’?”
“To be honest, I’m really nervous,” Raivis fidgeted with the hem of his t-shirt for the sixth time since he arrived. “This place is so big!”
“At the end of the week you’ll know it better than the back of your hand so like, don’t worry - as a runner you’ll be all over the place! Lemme see your shiny new ID!”
He handed it over, and Raivis was still finding it odd that Feliks was dressed in jeans and a (really fancy) t-shirt for work - mainly because in the week he’d known and lived with him, he’d only worn dresses and miniskirts.
“Kyaa, you look so young! Maybe you should keep your passport and EU card with you so people will know you’re eighteen.” Feliks snapped his chewing gum thoughtfully. “How was security clearance?”
“It went well, they all understood me, but that tall security man was terrifying!”
“Who, Berwald? Oh, he’s just a giant teddy bear - just don’t mess with his wife and he’ll love you”
“Wife?”
“The short smiley one, Tino.”
“Tino’s his wife?” Raivis squeaked, “oh no, I’ll get into trouble now, I called her ‘sir’...!’”
“What? Tino’s a guy too, thought that was obvious.”
“But you said -”
“Berwald calls Tino his ‘wife’ even though they aren’t dating yet... which they should so totally do.”
“Oh.”
“Anyways, as I’m officially your boss now, I’m taking you on your official tour, so let’s go!”
Raivis had to hurry to keep up with Feliks’s rapid stride.
“You remembered your notebook and pens?”
“Yes!”
“Good, never ever forget them; it’s your Bible, your number one weapon to surviving this job! Anyways, you’ll be working around the Studio areas so you’ll need to know these places best.”
They passed two men speaking in rapid Italian, one with a vice-like grip on a coffee mug.
“That’s the Vargas brothers, Public Relations, and grandsons of one of the co-founders. Stay on their good side. Lovino’s the one with the cup, always pissed off because he’s always on his period; Felicano’s the other one, nice but he’s the dumbest boy you will ever meet. Remember that.”
Raivis dutifully scribbled ‘Vargas - do not annoy.’
“As a runner you are a donkey for the rest of the team; all of you are expected to do whatever is asked of you, whether it’s carrying - oh, that cute guy in a suit is Roderich Edelstein, lead Culture correspondent - all kinds of equipment, relay messages, fetch food and drinks, or even going across the city to pick up the boss’s dry-cleaning - and all without complaining. Alright, main meeting room.”
He pushed the double doors open where there was a large circular table with a few dozen chairs dominating the room, and a long table at the side.
“That other table is for food and drinks for breakfast and long meetings, which is usually like major disasters and really long reports that need updates every hour; by the way, you’ll need to do nights every now and then when that happens,” The blond spun and went back the way they came and pointed at a few other doors. “There are a few more meeting rooms here, but they prefer to use the big one, I dunno why, more room to hear themselves talk over each other. So yeah, this floor is meetings, the general offices and at the other end of the corridor is the office of the Executive Producer Ludwig Beilschmidt.”
“He’s Mr Beilschmidt’s grandson?”
“The younger one yeah, he’s okay but always really stressed. The other one is a total asshole, but he only likes picking on journalists and Elizaveta - one of the floor managers- so you’ll fly under his radar.”
More scribbling.
“Okay, floor above us is the offices of Mr Beilschmidt, Vargas and Yao, but don’t expect to go up there much. Mr Yao is usually down here with us mere mortals and the last time Beilschmidt and Vargas were around I was rocking pastel colours, so that was a while ago! It’s mostly their secretaries relaying messages and buying stuff on eBay up there now.”
The next half hour was a blur. Downstairs from the offices was where all the studio-related things were, and below that was the IT floor where his half-brother Eduard worked, and below that was Marketing and Public Relations. Feliks walked and talked so fast, pointing out people and rooms and departments, that Raivis barely kept up, only half-listening as he wrote down as much as he could.
“And this is the most important place of all!” Feliks opened this new set of double doors with an extra flourish to reveal...
“The canteen?”
“Totally! You get all the best gossip here, as well as a really delicious low fat salad. Seriously though, all you have to do is listen, and you’ll hear just about everything. Of course it’s all confidential outside the building, but feel free to tell me everything. Right,” Feliks tapped his chin. “Okay, the guy sleeping over there is one of the late news correspondents Heracles Karpusi, totally hot, and that’s a fact.
Oh, and that one with the eyebrows is Arthur Kirkland, he always looks annoyed, but this time I hear it’s because a guy he totally hates is coming back to work here. The two Asian guys next to him are Kiku Honda and Jun Lau, his producer and a tech correspondent. I dunno why those guys are sitting with someone so bitchy as Kirkland, ya know I think he wouldn’t be so cranky if he waxed those monster eyebrows of his -”
“Um, Feliks?”
“Yeah?”
“W-what if I get lost, who can I ask?”
“Not a journalist, definitely not them, they are major assholes.”
“Journalists... the ones in suits?”
“The accountants and business types wear suits too, avoid them as well; way way too stressed! Just ask anyone dressed like a normal person.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Oh yeah, with suit types don’t talk to them unless they talk to you first; not because they are better than you, but that’s how they usually get their power trips. I remember this one time this guy tried to get me fired because I insulted him, and I was like, ‘How the hell did I insult him when all I said was his tie made him look ugly’, so anyway....”
Despite himself, Raivis’s attention eventually wandered away from Feliks’s babbling, and he looked around the busy canteen. How did he get himself into this? This place was way too big, there were too many room codes and names to remember, he might screw up and destroy the building, or even worse, get fired...
Suddenly he noticed a man with ash-blond hair, imposing even though he was sitting alone by one of the windows eating his late breakfast. Somehow he wasn’t sure if Feliks had mentioned him.
“Who is that?”
Feliks glanced where Raivis was looking and made a face. “That’s Ivan, one of the programme directors, but you should really stay away from him.”
“Why?”
“Psychopath, seriously.” Feliks grabbed his arm and easily swung him round to lead him straight out. “Anyways, you should be fine here, your English is great so no one can give you crap about not understanding you. I’ll take you downstairs and show you where they keep the camera equipment.”
______________________________________________
(1) Yeah, Pineapple .co. I was trying to think of a fake computer company name and my mind went to Digimon Adventure.
______________________________________________
Names: Sebastiano De Luca - Vatican City
Nikolaj - Denmark
______________________________________________
I don’t think anyone expected a sequel to this, but I hope you all enjoyed this so far!
Author/Artist: Jamaica-tan
Character(s) or Pairing(s): Francis/Arthur as main, and various others
Rating: R to be safe.
Genre: Comedy/Romance/Drama
Warnings: swearing, buckets of innuendo, Francis.
Summary: Welcome to the United Nations News Network, the world's best, first, only and worst international news channel! Can the channel handle co-presenters that hate each other? Can Ludwig contol his insane employees? FrUk and other pairings.
Prologue link inside!
Introduction - 2006 has been the worst year in the history of ever.
Note: Just a reminder that this story, particularly the FrUK storyline, is based off ‘Shakespeare ReTold’s Much Ado about Nothing’ so I will be using some lines/scenes from that film. If I forget to credit any other references please remind me.
[“dialogue”] is words over intercom or microphone.
EDIT: Because I'm an idiot that never should upload a story when tired, I forgot to thank my betas Redundant Goddess and koholint. You guys rawk :3
Part 1 - Erection Day
20th September, 2010.
“On this day in 1990, UNN (United Nations News Network), the world’s most controversial news channel, was born. It started as a small experimental satellite channel by two eccentric billionaires, and after moving to a more widespread service, it is now one of the most popular and despised news channels in the world. Everybody and their dog knows about this news channel, but my esteemed editor seemed to think the 20th anniversary of the channel, which was started and still runs in our fair city of London, was worth a mention in our paper.
For those who’ve been living in a hole for the past 20 years I will enlighten you about this strange channel’s origins: in 1989 two best friends, a German industrial mogul Valamir Beilschmidt and an Italian, Romulus Vargas (whose money is rumoured to come from shady business interests), decided to start a news channel whose sole aim was to be truly international, to report events from across the globe without any national or political ties to cause bias. As they were both living in London at the time, they decided it would make sense to set up here, and to gather a team of news and media specialists from across the world to reinforce the message of neutrality.
This ‘international’ news and staff policy is still in force, and I will concede that the dozens of news awards won globally mean that they must be doing something right, but here I can reveal my suspicions that there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark.
The station is still owned by Beilschmidt/Vargas, but nowadays they rarely step over the threshold of their company; Valamir having gone an extended sabbatical/holiday (3 years so far and counting), while Romulus seems content to drift around the world, photographed with supermodels clinging to him. Very professional. However, there is a third owner - a Chinese businessman, Wang Yao, who is trying to instil some order into the company on the business side, and the day-to-day running is left to Ludwig Beilschmidt, the younger of Valamir’s grandsons. His elder brother Gilbert runs and hosts ‘The Awesome Hour’ (currently on holiday), a show so stupid I won’t go into detail. Vargas’s grandsons, Lovino and Feliciano, run the Public Relations department, the success of which swings wildly between ditzy incompetence and eye-popping fury at any question asked.
The most popular programme on the channel is the early evening news, which for the past four years has been co-presented by Arthur Kirkland, the sole British face of the channel, who tries desperately to hide his public-schoolboy personality and pretend he’s merely of the middle-class, and the venerable television news veteran Sebastiano De Luca, who looks like he’s long past retirement age and is now skidding towards the grave.
Art film geeks will be interested to know that the director of the programme is Ivan Braginsky, the man who a few years ago directed the award-winning ‘The Comedy of the Tragedy of the Post-Soviet Human Condition’ on a three-week trip back to his homeland of Russia. Despite making several other successful, disturbing, and vague films, he’s stayed at the channel. Rumours abound that he’s a mini-Stalin that rules the place.
Before De Luca joined the team, Kirkland’s co-presenter for nearly two years was Francis Bonnefoy, who always had a vague air of non-discriminatory sexual harassment about him - in other words, your typical Frenchman. Needless to say there are various online campaigns to bring him back, as if there was not enough eye-candy at the station, which brings me to my main problem.
I know I’m not a supermodel, but in the news industry you can be successful and average looking; but at UNN the job specification seems to be foreign, young and attractive. Many industry insiders have also heard shocking things about the in-fighting at the channel. Where normally media types would happily stab their friend in the back for a few minutes in power, at UNN the biggest concern seems to be keeping track of who is sleeping with who each day, with occasional holiday office orgies ---”
“Right, I’m not reading any more, what a load of old crap,” Arthur tossed the newspaper aside. “I should burn that later - and what exactly crawled up that hack’s arse to make him so bitter about the channel?”
“He’s just jealous that he doesn’t work here,” Alfred said around a mouthful of ice cream, slouched on the studio sofa next to Arthur, “You know everyone wants to be us!”
“Don’t talk when you eat, Alfred, it’s disgusting.”
“Well you know it’s true because he hasn’t even mentioned me! Talk about lazy work! I’m super popular!” The American tossed the ice cream stick behind him, hitting an unlucky studio hand in the head.
Arthur was now rifling through his notes, “h you’re in there all right - it’s just not very flattering so I wouldn’t read if I was you.”
“Ah ha, sounds like you’re jealous!” Alfred grabbed the newspaper from his friend’s side. Arthur didn’t stop him but watched with an eyebrow raised as Alfred read the article, smiling slightly when he began to turn red.
“ ‘IQ of a hamburger’ ?”
“I told you, and don’t do anything stupid because practically everyone here gets in the neck from this hack. He’s nicest about Ivan but also called him Stalin... Ivan will find him in time.”
“That’s true,” Alfred muttered, “Then there’s that comment about Denmark.”
“ ‘Something rotten in the state of Denmark,’? I don’t think Nikolaj would be happy to read that; even if it’s Shakespearean it still sounds like a jibe, and I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t want to anger a tall Norseman with a giant axe...” Arthur trailed off.
“Totally,” Alfred agreed.
After a beat, Alfred suggested, “Maybe we should put him in front of that journalist’s office then show him the piece.”
“Good idea.”
A pretty brown-haired woman with a headset and clipboard approached them. “You two have everything you need? Alfred, you’ll need to move in a second, Mr De Luca is coming.”
“Yeah yeah,” The tall blond picked up the paper and stood, waving it tauntingly. “You seen this, Liz?”
“Nope,” Elizaeveta’s eyes were giving the studio a calculative sweep, searching for any imperfections. “I don’t read those, but I’ve heard of what was written... though I can tell you I do know that the guy that wrote that got left with a big bill when Gilbert found his credit card and put it behind the bar at our last Christmas party.”
“Well that explains a lot.”
“Hurry up!”
“Okay okay!” Alfred finally moved to the other side of the studio to his seat.
Just then an elderly man with a walking stick approached the beige sofa.
“Evening Arthur,” he said as he sat, quietly tucking his cane out of camera shot before adjusting his microphone, “I see you’re all still fuming about that silly article; I haven’t laughed so much in my life!”
“It’s slander, that’s what it is. Somebody should sue.”
“You should know that suing in this industry is career suicide - just laugh it off and make sure Ludwig knows about the article so that the channel will never feed that rag of a paper any news ever again.”
Arthur considered this while looking into the black camera lens, trying to fix his hair “Good point.”
Elizaveta came back, fingers tapping nervously on her headset. “Okay guys, are you ready? We’re starting in 30.”
[#Inside the (SCR) Studio Control Room#]
[“Liz, my throat is still sore I need another ice cream!”]
[“Don’t call me Liz, and if you took your cold medicine properly you would be better by now!”]
[“But, Liz~”]
Ludwig had had enough and pressed the buttons for Liz and Alfred’s earpieces, “Shut up Alfred, you yell too much and that’s why your throat is still sore, so save your voice for your segment.”
There was a strange childlike giggle beside Ludwig as Ivan’s hands worked expertly on the switch board without his eyes leaving the screen. “Perhaps if he ate properly and left those disgusting burgers...”
“That’s enough Ivan, and not a word from you, Alfred.” Ludwig ignored the muttered
[“Shut your face, Commie fatsicle,”] from the American’s microphone to look at the two men that were actually on the cameras. “Arthur, stop playing with your hair, you look fine.”
“Ten seconds everyone.” One of the studio room producers, Toris, held the stopwatch. There was a rapid increase in noise and bustle as everyone in the room and studio rushed to check everything was perfect.
“Roll credits.”
“Nine...
“Are the colours right?”
“Eight...”
“A little washed out, turn down the brightness a touch...”
“Seven...”
“Sound check?”
“Everything is correct.”
“Six...”
[“Green room and makeup, be ready for final touch-ups two minutes before guests cues,”] Kiku said over the tannoy.
“Five...” The room fell silent; only the director could speak now. Ivan’s eyes remained fixed on the screen - for the next hour, this was his world.
“...camera two, centre is off by a degree... that’s good. Arthur, fix your tie; everyone ready? Good...cue De Luca.”
.....26 minutes later.......
“Thank you Eduard for that insightful report.” Arthur turned from the monitor to face the camera with a small smile.
“Very insightful, who would have guessed that the environmental impact figures of computers could be so great?”
“Not I. However, later in the programme we will speak to representatives of both EnviroTech and Pineapple .co to hear both sides of this debate.”
“For now, we...we-w-we...”
Arthur glanced away from the camera to see De Luca’s face quickly draining of all colour to an ashen grey, and then clenched his left shoulder and fell off the couch.
For a moment Arthur stared disbelieving at the older man twitching on the floor before remembering they were still on air. He looked up, saw the crew frozen in shock and the glint of the camera lens, and saw red.
“What the hell do you lot think you’re doing! Cut! Call an ambulance! Go to the weather!”
With that the camera quickly cut to a small room where a blond man was sat on a chair quietly eating a sandwich and reading a book in front of a blank screen. This continued for a few seconds before a blaring sound apparently erupted so suddenly from the young man’s ear that he fell off his chair and out of sight of the camera.
“What-what? I’m on air? Now?” There was a scrabbling sound and the occasional flash of blond hair before the man stood, frantically fixing his tie and glasses while trying not to drop his remote for the screen. The screen lit up and promptly began to fast-forward through random graphics.
“Hello, good evening, I’m Matthew Williams and here is the weekend weather!”
.
18th September, morning.
Arthur only had to wait outside inconspicuously for a few minutes before Ludwig arrived, and together they made their way inside. While inside the lift, Arthur enquired after De Luca.
“Well... the good news is that he’ll recover eventually, but he’ll be under care for a very long time; he also said we should consider the heart attack as his retirement notice.”
“Oh, that’s terrible - he’s not in one of those awful NHS hospitals is he?”
“No, he’s at The Duke of Wellesley private clinic, the place with the therapeutic mood lighting.”
“That’s good,” Arthur allowed for a respectful pause before getting to what he really wanted to know. “So this will mean that I will be presenting the programme solo, then?”
“Yes, well,” Ludwig looked a little uncomfortable, “Only for two weeks, and then your new co-presenter will arrive.”
Bollocks. Oh well, must soldier on. “Bringing someone in, or re-organizing the team?”
“Bringing someone in; however, he’s not exactly new, as he has worked here before...”
“Oh I see; anyone I know?”
The lift pinged before the doors opened, and they made their way towards the meeting rooms.
“He’s an excellent journalist; he’s worked across the world and is very highly regarded in the international news community. He’s also known for his charisma, which has made him very popular with viewers.”
“That’s nice, so who is he?”
Ludwig seemed very uncomfortable, but he put on a smile for Arthur; but then Arthur saw it. The slight facial tic; the tic that meant his boss was trying to cover extreme stress and put off impending disaster... now Arthur knew that in his professional life he managed to maintain various good links so it made no sense for Ludwig to be nervous, unless he was stupid enough to -
Arthur halted, colour draining from his face. “You haven’t.”
The smile quickly left, and the blond sighed, “Arthur -”
“You wouldn’t.”
“He’s one of the best -”
“Don’t give me that excuse, you know how I feel about that - that French wino! Withdraw the offer!”
“He’s already signed the contract.”
“Tear it up!”
“You know that isn’t possible.”
Fists clenched tightly, he had to resist the urge to punch Ludwig, but said instead, “Since you’re so keen to sign people up, you should find yourself another co-presenter.” With that he spun around and stormed off towards his office.
“Arthur -”
“Don’t even bother!”
.
Late in the afternoon, Arthur was perfectly happy feeling sorry for himself on the sofa of one of the smaller empty studios, when he heard one of the doors open. He looked up and saw Ludwig approaching with his usual stoic expression and holding Arthur’s favourite mug; and from the steam coming from it, it was probably a lovely cup of tea - a peace offering. Damn Ludwig.
“Thought no one would find me here,” he muttered when Ludwig sat next to him, but accepted the offered mug of tea.
“One of the responsibilities of being the boss is always knowing where your employees are. It’s so I know you’re working, but sometimes I’ve woken up in the night because I just know that one of you has been thrown out of a seedy nightclub.”
“Huh.” Arthur sourly took a sip of the tea. It was perfect. Damn Ludwig.
“Can’t you just, I dunno, staple a blow-up doll to the sofa? No one would notice the difference.”
“Arthur,” the younger man sighed and rubbed his temples, “can’t you be more professional about it? He’s very popular and it would bring in more of the general female demographic.”
“If more women are tuning in just to view that frog then I say we don’t need those kind of idiots; and I am a bloody professional, because unlike him I’d hand in a proper notice when I wanted to leave, instead of jetting off to north Africa with a scribbled note left with Antonio!”
“That was unprofessional, but he’s still very successful and newly available... if we didn’t get him, he’d be hired by one of our rivals, and we can’t afford that.”
“Well, thanks, nice to know since he left we’ve been sinking into the mud.”
“You know I don’t mean that, but when you two were working together the ratings for the early evening news were at their peak; surely you know that you two had great chemistry.”
“There was nothing between us!”
There was a weary sigh. “If you say nothing else after this conversation, I’ll triple your personal allowance.”
Arthur looked at him in surprise. “Really? No catches?” He immediately thought of Vash the Finances Manager: frugal, bad tempered, and rather trigger happy by the look of the loving framed photos of guns in his office. Ludwig was obviously thinking of Vash as well, by the way he clenched his jaw and straightened slightly. “For a year.”
Jesus; this was a big deal.
“Okay,” he said finally, “But if he ever comes onto me I’m going to maim him.”
“Nothing above the neck, and no broken hands.”
“Deal.”
.
27th September.
“Your first day of your first real job, how are ya feelin’?”
“To be honest, I’m really nervous,” Raivis fidgeted with the hem of his t-shirt for the sixth time since he arrived. “This place is so big!”
“At the end of the week you’ll know it better than the back of your hand so like, don’t worry - as a runner you’ll be all over the place! Lemme see your shiny new ID!”
He handed it over, and Raivis was still finding it odd that Feliks was dressed in jeans and a (really fancy) t-shirt for work - mainly because in the week he’d known and lived with him, he’d only worn dresses and miniskirts.
“Kyaa, you look so young! Maybe you should keep your passport and EU card with you so people will know you’re eighteen.” Feliks snapped his chewing gum thoughtfully. “How was security clearance?”
“It went well, they all understood me, but that tall security man was terrifying!”
“Who, Berwald? Oh, he’s just a giant teddy bear - just don’t mess with his wife and he’ll love you”
“Wife?”
“The short smiley one, Tino.”
“Tino’s his wife?” Raivis squeaked, “oh no, I’ll get into trouble now, I called her ‘sir’...!’”
“What? Tino’s a guy too, thought that was obvious.”
“But you said -”
“Berwald calls Tino his ‘wife’ even though they aren’t dating yet... which they should so totally do.”
“Oh.”
“Anyways, as I’m officially your boss now, I’m taking you on your official tour, so let’s go!”
Raivis had to hurry to keep up with Feliks’s rapid stride.
“You remembered your notebook and pens?”
“Yes!”
“Good, never ever forget them; it’s your Bible, your number one weapon to surviving this job! Anyways, you’ll be working around the Studio areas so you’ll need to know these places best.”
They passed two men speaking in rapid Italian, one with a vice-like grip on a coffee mug.
“That’s the Vargas brothers, Public Relations, and grandsons of one of the co-founders. Stay on their good side. Lovino’s the one with the cup, always pissed off because he’s always on his period; Felicano’s the other one, nice but he’s the dumbest boy you will ever meet. Remember that.”
Raivis dutifully scribbled ‘Vargas - do not annoy.’
“As a runner you are a donkey for the rest of the team; all of you are expected to do whatever is asked of you, whether it’s carrying - oh, that cute guy in a suit is Roderich Edelstein, lead Culture correspondent - all kinds of equipment, relay messages, fetch food and drinks, or even going across the city to pick up the boss’s dry-cleaning - and all without complaining. Alright, main meeting room.”
He pushed the double doors open where there was a large circular table with a few dozen chairs dominating the room, and a long table at the side.
“That other table is for food and drinks for breakfast and long meetings, which is usually like major disasters and really long reports that need updates every hour; by the way, you’ll need to do nights every now and then when that happens,” The blond spun and went back the way they came and pointed at a few other doors. “There are a few more meeting rooms here, but they prefer to use the big one, I dunno why, more room to hear themselves talk over each other. So yeah, this floor is meetings, the general offices and at the other end of the corridor is the office of the Executive Producer Ludwig Beilschmidt.”
“He’s Mr Beilschmidt’s grandson?”
“The younger one yeah, he’s okay but always really stressed. The other one is a total asshole, but he only likes picking on journalists and Elizaveta - one of the floor managers- so you’ll fly under his radar.”
More scribbling.
“Okay, floor above us is the offices of Mr Beilschmidt, Vargas and Yao, but don’t expect to go up there much. Mr Yao is usually down here with us mere mortals and the last time Beilschmidt and Vargas were around I was rocking pastel colours, so that was a while ago! It’s mostly their secretaries relaying messages and buying stuff on eBay up there now.”
The next half hour was a blur. Downstairs from the offices was where all the studio-related things were, and below that was the IT floor where his half-brother Eduard worked, and below that was Marketing and Public Relations. Feliks walked and talked so fast, pointing out people and rooms and departments, that Raivis barely kept up, only half-listening as he wrote down as much as he could.
“And this is the most important place of all!” Feliks opened this new set of double doors with an extra flourish to reveal...
“The canteen?”
“Totally! You get all the best gossip here, as well as a really delicious low fat salad. Seriously though, all you have to do is listen, and you’ll hear just about everything. Of course it’s all confidential outside the building, but feel free to tell me everything. Right,” Feliks tapped his chin. “Okay, the guy sleeping over there is one of the late news correspondents Heracles Karpusi, totally hot, and that’s a fact.
Oh, and that one with the eyebrows is Arthur Kirkland, he always looks annoyed, but this time I hear it’s because a guy he totally hates is coming back to work here. The two Asian guys next to him are Kiku Honda and Jun Lau, his producer and a tech correspondent. I dunno why those guys are sitting with someone so bitchy as Kirkland, ya know I think he wouldn’t be so cranky if he waxed those monster eyebrows of his -”
“Um, Feliks?”
“Yeah?”
“W-what if I get lost, who can I ask?”
“Not a journalist, definitely not them, they are major assholes.”
“Journalists... the ones in suits?”
“The accountants and business types wear suits too, avoid them as well; way way too stressed! Just ask anyone dressed like a normal person.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Oh yeah, with suit types don’t talk to them unless they talk to you first; not because they are better than you, but that’s how they usually get their power trips. I remember this one time this guy tried to get me fired because I insulted him, and I was like, ‘How the hell did I insult him when all I said was his tie made him look ugly’, so anyway....”
Despite himself, Raivis’s attention eventually wandered away from Feliks’s babbling, and he looked around the busy canteen. How did he get himself into this? This place was way too big, there were too many room codes and names to remember, he might screw up and destroy the building, or even worse, get fired...
Suddenly he noticed a man with ash-blond hair, imposing even though he was sitting alone by one of the windows eating his late breakfast. Somehow he wasn’t sure if Feliks had mentioned him.
“Who is that?”
Feliks glanced where Raivis was looking and made a face. “That’s Ivan, one of the programme directors, but you should really stay away from him.”
“Why?”
“Psychopath, seriously.” Feliks grabbed his arm and easily swung him round to lead him straight out. “Anyways, you should be fine here, your English is great so no one can give you crap about not understanding you. I’ll take you downstairs and show you where they keep the camera equipment.”
______________________________________________
(1) Yeah, Pineapple .co. I was trying to think of a fake computer company name and my mind went to Digimon Adventure.
______________________________________________
Names: Sebastiano De Luca - Vatican City
Nikolaj - Denmark
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I don’t think anyone expected a sequel to this, but I hope you all enjoyed this so far!