At the WAMT studios, formerly WBBC....
    "I think that went well. All right." Holly dusted her hands off in satisfaction. "Another wonderful day."
    A head appeared in the doorway. "Uh, Holly?"
    "Quentin, hi," she greeted him.
    "Can I talk to you in my office for a second?"
    "Sure, did you see the taping of the show?" They went to his office and sat down. "I have to say, I was very happy with today's show."
    "Yeah, looked good Holly." He seemed ill at ease and not inclined to small talk. "I wanted to talk to you 'cause I just spoke with the station managers and... well, your ratings are in a bit of a slide."
    "What?" A dangerous glint appeared in her eye.
    "No, I mean—everyone here at the station really respects your work, and the work that you've been doing," he told her hastily, "but... I just have to say that we've come to the decision that your particular crusade against the Revolution just isn't ratings-worthy anymore," he finished hurriedly.
    "I'm a journalist. You want me to be ratings-worthy?"
    "We're producing a show," he shrugged. "It has to be ratings-worthy. Do you remember the research that you did, the expose that you did last month about the corruption in the purchasing department of the state government? Remember that? Ratings were great. We don't mind that you crusade. We like it when you crusade," he assured her. "Go out, hunt stuff down. But... crusading against the Revolution is not selling. And I hate to break it to you, Holly, but I don't think it's gonna sell. You may not like them, but they haven't screwed up."
    Pause. "You want me... to stop?"
    "That's what we're asking for, yes. There are a lot of other worthy targets out there," he reminded her. "And I swear to you, the moment that they make a mistake that we can nail them for, we'll be behind you one hundred percent to nail them to the wall. But you're not helping yourself, or the network, or anybody, by attacking them when their public relations are through the roof, their Q ratings are outstanding, and they haven't broken any laws. All right?"
    Silence for a long moment.
    "And my other option is...?"
    "We'd have to cancel the show," he said flatly. "Unless ratings come up in the next month or so, we're gonna have to let it go. It doesn't matter that we just got bought out by Agglomerated MegaTelevision, we're still very small, okay? You're a good draw—when you draw. We need you to draw," he emphasized. "I have a list of targets that you set up months ago, people that we should be exposing, people that Mike Wallace would salivate to go after, all right? With Agglomerated MegaCorp behind us, you now have the muscle. You just have to pick the right targets."
    "Let me see the list, I'll go into my office and go over it," she said quietly.
    "Glad you're being reasonable about this, Holly," Quentin smiled in obvious, oblivious, relief.
    She took the list and walked calmly down the hall back to her office. Closed the door. Picked up her coffee mug. Flung it against the wall, where it shattered.
    "GOD DAMMIT!" A few moments of incoherent raving later, "How come they don't see this!? Huh?! Everybody in this town's gonna get killed 'cause we keep backing this stupid group of idiots! I'll show them! I'll show them all!!"

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