8:00 AM: Staff Meeting
I showed up late. It seemed appropriate to do so when everyone else thought that I was going to the announcement of my own termination.
The past few months had been hell: the wine-cellar slaughter, the bungled assassination attempts on various members of AI, the whole vampire baby thing.
(some dialog excerpted from Angel 4.1, "Deep Down" by Steven S. DeKnight. Transcript available at: http://www.buffyworld.com/angel/season4/transcripts/67_tran.php)
I'd taken most of the heat, since Lindsey had fucked off to wherever to pick up Tubby McWicca and work on his secret dream of one day being a real boy. Linwood was no Holland Manners, and Gavin Park was no Lindsey McDonald, but they had still managed to undercut me to the point where I had no authority anymore.
The trouble is that they didn't see the big picture. A lot of my plans in the past months had failed, true... but at least I'd had the sack to try and implement them. Say what you like, but doping Angel's blood with his own son's AB-positive? Tricking our own broody vampire nemesis into raising Billy from Hell? SO much classier than assing around with video cameras and loan officers.
So when the kid in the white room introduced me to Mr. Suharta, I was able to honestly say that, in a Lilah-run office, things would eventually get done. I had been unlucky... but really I only would have to be lucky once, where the Angel team would have to be lucky as many times as I tried. The odds were in my favor. Whereas the current administration would never get lucky because they'd never roll the dice.
Wimps. But anyway I thought the meeting was important enough to redo my lipstick (MAC's "Satiate), and thus wasn't quite on time.
And now King Candy-ass was sitting in the special chair. "Alright, we've got a lot of ground to cover, so let's get right to it. Let's talk about Lilah. Everybody had a chance to review her file? Good. Recommendations?"
"If I could just have a few minutes to explain..." I said.
Gavin, the smarmy little puke, interrupted. He would so pay for that. "I think your record speaks for itself."
"Volumes," said Linwood. It was like a ventriloquist and his dummy act, "Your failures at Wolfram and Hart outstrip your successes by and uncomfortable margin. Perhaps you would fare better at a less central office."
"One of the third world dimensions maybe." That little bitch was going to suffer.
"I'm sorry," I said, in a whisper
"What was that?" replied Linwood.
"I said, I'm sorry. I've made mistakes, but *fear* was never one of them. Why haven't we contained the vampire offspring for study?"
"We're assessing that situation."
"The same way you're assessing Angel? Then why aren't we trying to pinpoint Angel's location?"
"Lilah, this is *my* corner of the sky. *I* decide when the sun rises and when it sets. Lack of long-term vision has always been one of your shortcomings."
"And lack of courage has always been one of yours. You're afraid - of Angel and his son. And that's the reason for your daring strategy of 'wait and see', isn't it? You're afraid. And fear breeds weakness."
"Oh. I'm hurt. Is that *really* what you think of me?"
"Yes. And Mr. Suharta agrees with me."
"You spoke to a Senior Partner?"
"He was really very helpful. He had some great hints on office furniture."
"This is outrageous! Are you actually telling me that you went over my head?"
Now I'm not normally a death-fetishist or anything, but I have to tell you that I'll be hearing the sound of the little buzzsaw that cut through Linwood's neck in my dreams for a long time. The happy ones.
As his head rolled down the table, eyes open, a great line, which I didn't think of until afterwards (damn esprit d'escalier) would have been "Just under it, actually." Maybe in some other life I did say it. But instead I smiled with my beautifully-done lips, said, "Welcome to the regime change, everyone. Within two minutes I want you to be working like people who know that this little remote control device has several other buttons that I'm just dying to try out. First order of business... Angel. He's back. Never mind how I know. I want him on the right team, and the rest of the Brady Bunch out of my hair. Second... Lindsey MacDonald came into my office yesterday. I want to know how it is that our equipment doesn't see him. And then I want him found and bought to me. Alive. For now. This time tomorrow I want some real progress. And Gavin?"
Oh how I relished his flinch. "Tidy up Linwood. Consider it an object lesson. The rest of you get to work."
The past few months had been hell: the wine-cellar slaughter, the bungled assassination attempts on various members of AI, the whole vampire baby thing.
(some dialog excerpted from Angel 4.1, "Deep Down" by Steven S. DeKnight. Transcript available at: http://www.buffyworld.com/angel/season4/transcripts/67_tran.php)
I'd taken most of the heat, since Lindsey had fucked off to wherever to pick up Tubby McWicca and work on his secret dream of one day being a real boy. Linwood was no Holland Manners, and Gavin Park was no Lindsey McDonald, but they had still managed to undercut me to the point where I had no authority anymore.
The trouble is that they didn't see the big picture. A lot of my plans in the past months had failed, true... but at least I'd had the sack to try and implement them. Say what you like, but doping Angel's blood with his own son's AB-positive? Tricking our own broody vampire nemesis into raising Billy from Hell? SO much classier than assing around with video cameras and loan officers.
So when the kid in the white room introduced me to Mr. Suharta, I was able to honestly say that, in a Lilah-run office, things would eventually get done. I had been unlucky... but really I only would have to be lucky once, where the Angel team would have to be lucky as many times as I tried. The odds were in my favor. Whereas the current administration would never get lucky because they'd never roll the dice.
Wimps. But anyway I thought the meeting was important enough to redo my lipstick (MAC's "Satiate), and thus wasn't quite on time.
And now King Candy-ass was sitting in the special chair. "Alright, we've got a lot of ground to cover, so let's get right to it. Let's talk about Lilah. Everybody had a chance to review her file? Good. Recommendations?"
"If I could just have a few minutes to explain..." I said.
Gavin, the smarmy little puke, interrupted. He would so pay for that. "I think your record speaks for itself."
"Volumes," said Linwood. It was like a ventriloquist and his dummy act, "Your failures at Wolfram and Hart outstrip your successes by and uncomfortable margin. Perhaps you would fare better at a less central office."
"One of the third world dimensions maybe." That little bitch was going to suffer.
"I'm sorry," I said, in a whisper
"What was that?" replied Linwood.
"I said, I'm sorry. I've made mistakes, but *fear* was never one of them. Why haven't we contained the vampire offspring for study?"
"We're assessing that situation."
"The same way you're assessing Angel? Then why aren't we trying to pinpoint Angel's location?"
"Lilah, this is *my* corner of the sky. *I* decide when the sun rises and when it sets. Lack of long-term vision has always been one of your shortcomings."
"And lack of courage has always been one of yours. You're afraid - of Angel and his son. And that's the reason for your daring strategy of 'wait and see', isn't it? You're afraid. And fear breeds weakness."
"Oh. I'm hurt. Is that *really* what you think of me?"
"Yes. And Mr. Suharta agrees with me."
"You spoke to a Senior Partner?"
"He was really very helpful. He had some great hints on office furniture."
"This is outrageous! Are you actually telling me that you went over my head?"
Now I'm not normally a death-fetishist or anything, but I have to tell you that I'll be hearing the sound of the little buzzsaw that cut through Linwood's neck in my dreams for a long time. The happy ones.
As his head rolled down the table, eyes open, a great line, which I didn't think of until afterwards (damn esprit d'escalier) would have been "Just under it, actually." Maybe in some other life I did say it. But instead I smiled with my beautifully-done lips, said, "Welcome to the regime change, everyone. Within two minutes I want you to be working like people who know that this little remote control device has several other buttons that I'm just dying to try out. First order of business... Angel. He's back. Never mind how I know. I want him on the right team, and the rest of the Brady Bunch out of my hair. Second... Lindsey MacDonald came into my office yesterday. I want to know how it is that our equipment doesn't see him. And then I want him found and bought to me. Alive. For now. This time tomorrow I want some real progress. And Gavin?"
Oh how I relished his flinch. "Tidy up Linwood. Consider it an object lesson. The rest of you get to work."