Before 24 Billion and Counting

Chapter 14 Part 1 The second model is built, and the why of it found.

The Thatcher Hotel where I arrived, at four in the morning, was aggressively 2001. It tried to look and sound soft and warm but was coldly efficient, huge, and impersonal. Never mind, I wanted a bed for a night and a half and no nonsense. 

I rang Kelly. "Hello stranger, I was beginning to think that all you were was a moving lap top on the end of a 'phone. Everyone is up in arms here saying that if you wanted a holiday you could have booked one but you didn't, and they want your help." 

"Who do you mean by everyone Kelly?" 

"Well it's mostly Ward Nolan. He makes enough noise for three, and he winds everyone else up. He's saying he's got a script that's hotter than Bobby goes to Town, and the others won't back him to the tune of the half of a million dollars he wants to acquire the film rights." 

"Who's read the script?" 

"No-one except Ward - he says he can't let anyone else see it." 

"Well, Kelly he knows the rules - we don't put out money over personal budgets unless the whole board reads it. I'd better speak to him if he's around. That said, is there anything else, really?" 

"Well no - I suppose not. If Ward wasn't in and out of this office pestering me for your whereabouts, and when are you coming back every five minutes, I think we'd cope." 

"Connect me to him." 

The screen blanked and the unit did an electronic belch. Ward's meaty bald face with the wide sensual thick lipped mouth and teeth exposed in one of his more unctuous, and as I had come to realise over the years, insincere smiles, appeared. 

"Well Charles. Nice of you to pay attention to your money factory and its wage slaves. Are you having fun with your pots and ballet dancers, and itsy bitsy space planes, and now real comets. Look we have a real earner here and you aren't here where you should be to make decisions." 

"Now look Wade - you've had one twenty million dollar success and two seven million failures. Another failure like the last two and we're down on the deal. Science fiction's not a big earner, but it always does earn, and we gain good exposure. So you pipe down. You know the rules. We buy on the corporate agreement of the board, and we all read or have access to the script. Kelly tells me you can't or won't give the rest of the guys the script, and I want to know why not." 

He took a drag on the cigarette he was holding. "Look they're tired, they don't know things like they are these days. They'll say it's tasteless or too sexy or some crap like that. They nearly rejected Bobby." 

I interrupted, "And they - we - agreed your last two projects on the strength of that and you bombed. Twice. So they and I have every reason to be cautious. And I won't have you pestering Kelly, and by the sound of it looking over her shoulder at my correspondence when you should be getting on with your patch, and when you damn well know the rules. If you want your deal considered you put the script, the author and his track record on all the board members' desks, and mine and we'll consider. If you don't trust the judgement of your fellow board members I would ask you to consider your position. You are not irreplaceable." 

"You can't do this. You're out of touch. I keep your outfit up to date - with the times." 

"Ward - I suspect the time for giving the media crap is going. Maybe education is having an impact. Has it ever occurred to you that taste may become fashionable again? But even if it doesn't, we can pick up somebody to keep our noses in the filth who won't be such a pain in the arse as you're being right now. I'm not arguing any further. Put me back to Kelly." 

"You'll regret this." 

"Kelly please Ward." 

The childish man cut the connection entirely. I rang Kelly again.