"I know you feel very strongly about it...."
    "Why don't we talk about Needle's concerns?"
    "Oh. Yeah, why don't we move to that, we'll broach the changes topic... later."
    "I'm merely here as an observer, really," I told him.
    "Oh. You weren't considering... um...."
    "Having lived the part, so to speak, I'd have to say no, no I'm not really interested."
    "Okay." Now he looked upset. "That's... okay...." His pencil point snapped on the paper. "What... what other concerns do you have, then, since you're not going to sign on, has there been a problem with any distribution, any of your public appearances?"
    "If you could excuse me for a moment, I'm just going to go use the ladies' room," I said. If Peter could use the excuse, so could I. I wandered down the hall, scanning.
    "We do need a little more information about how specifically the Toy Man managed to take over the studio," Talon was asking as I left. He took a bite from the danish Midge had brought.
    "Would you have a great objection if they used Toy Man once a season, he shows up and you beat the living bejeezus out of him?" Scott tried to find a middle ground.
    "Yes. Yes I would." Talon glared at the robot.
    "I think Scott has the right idea," Jenkins said.brightly. "If he were to show up and you were to display your superiority clearly, every time, and decisively?"
    "No," Talon growled. "He likes being on TV. That is why he is not going to be on TV, do you understand?"
    "How 'bout he's only in episodes that you are not—"
    "I thought I just explained this," he replied in the same tones of low menace. "This is a deal-breaker."
    Wendell blinked. "You're saying that if Toy Man appears, then you'll walk."
    "Yes," he all but hissed.
    "Well, I—I guess that if it's a deal-breaker..."
    "This relates to real life here, it's not just a TV show," he pointed out.
    "I'm well aware that it relates to real life. All right, if it's a deal-breaker we'll just have to...." He looked a bit pale.
    "The whole reason he did this was so he could get on TV and be my most canny... what I said. So, y'know. You can't give him what he wants, he's a bad guy," Talon explained, reasonably enough.
    "Well he just steals the air waves when he wants to show you stuck in a bottle, it's not like he's actually using the TV show," Scott pointed out, going to gas form.
    "I have every confidence in your writers that they can come up with something more entertaining than the Toy Man."
    "Okay. And we'll, we'll pass that along," Jenkins assured him. "Michael, be sure to let legal know that we're just going to let the Toy Man thing lapse after we've aired everything that we already have planned. We already have a lot of stuff in production."
    "How much is a lot?" Talon wanted to know.
    "In the material that is already present, we've already made a capital investment of... Michael?"
    "Uh, 2.4 million."
    "We're obviously going to have to go into this in depth," Talon decided. "A couple months at most until the last appearance of the Toy Man."
    "As the information that we have, Michael, how much do we actually have in the pipeline for that?"
    "Hold on, let me check Peter's notes. Oh. Uh, there's six months worth of material, plus sizable bodies in the latest version of the screenplay, for the movie."
    "All this has been filmed?" Talon asked in disbelief. "There's six months worth of episodes that have been filmed?"
    "No, there's six months worth of capital investment, six months worth of stuff in the pipeline, not counting the screenplay. Artists are already working on it various stages. It certainly looks like Peter has greenlighted large chunks of this."
    "Anything that's been filmed, can be shown," Talon proclaimed. "After that, stuff starts getting rewritten. Somehow I think your ratings went up the past couple weeks; you must be able to charge a littlemore."
    I circled around to where the men's room was supposed to be; no sign of anything or anyone unusual. Midge came over to direct me.
    "The ladies' room is over on that side. Or are you looking for something else?"
    "I was looking for Peter, actually."
    "Oh. He's down in the conference room on that side, he just said he wasn't feeling well, needed to lie down for a couple of minutes." She pointed down at the end of a rather long, empty corridor. "Mr. Paulson occasionally gets these attacks, he just has to lie down for a while."
    "I see." I scanned Midge's aura; erratic, as if she was under some great stress or emotion. Could be drugs, but if it was fear.... I called Scott. "Scott? Could you join me out here for a moment?"
    "Can I get you something?" Midge inquired nervously. "Coffee, danish?"
    "No, I think we'll be fine, thanks," I smiled reassuringly. "You can go back to your desk, we'll take care of things."
    "Excuse me a second, I need to...." Scott left it at that and left the room, followed by several puzzled glances.
    "Do we need more light in here for him?" Jenkins wondered.
    Talon shrugged. "Could be. He'll let us know. It's a Scott thing."
    "Oh. All right.... So, anything that's already been filmed, you'll allow? What about materials where we have three episodes that are half drawn, with a Toy Man presence in them?"
    "I'll let it go. I want to be cooperative here, because obviously it is a big deal, but at the same time this has to stop."
    "Okay." Jenkins addressed him briskly, clearly determined to find a resolution. "From what I've seen of the scripts, and Peter's really been taking the front on this for the last couple weeks...."
    "That's something I'm kind of worried about. I mean, are there any other creative minds at work in the series? Does Peter do everything?"
    "Peter's just very interested. I was put in on the project originally... my superiors at Agglomerated MegaCorp thought that having a more experienced hand at the helm would be a good idea on a project as large as this. But this has always been Peter's baby. He was the one who pushed for this from the beginning, and he's really desperately trying to make his mark in the field."
    "Well, considering how popular the series is, I think he has," Talon pointed out. "So some adjustment can be made here."
    "Granted, granted. I agree with you, we can definitely make some adjustment. I just—I know that you have problems with him, I've become somewhat attached to the Toy Man concept myself, I have personal reasons...."
    "I have MORE personal reasons."
    "And I understand that, I do," Jenkins insisted. "So when Peter suggested we highly integrate Toy Man into the series, I agreed with it; in fact I kind of encouraged him on it. So any problems that you're having you might be able to lay at my doorstep as far as the character appearing too much. But I thought it would be best for all concerned if there were... a lot of the Toy Man. I mean a strong central villain behind everything. So in all the episodes we've done so far there's a lot of him in the background. I thought this was in the scripts that we'd gone over originally?"
    "Things have changed since then. That was before we got kidnapped, and...."
    "I understand."
    "And I don't want to really dwell on this, I haven't talked to a lawyer, but it seems there would be some grounds for a possible negligence lawsuit for letting that happen," he hinted heavily. Michael looked about to say something. "I don't know, but I'm sure we can come to some kind of agreement." Michael subsided. "It would certainly be fairly embarrassing for Agglomerated MegaCorp for me to be hauling y'all into court, wouldn't it? Ha ha ha ha. So, Paul, was there anything you wanted to say?"
    Outside: "What's up?" Scott asked me.
    "Peter's theoretically at the end of that nice loooong hallway, and the secretary is either doing an awful lot of coke for this hour of the day or she's terrified of something," I informed him quietly.
    "Shall we go look?"
    "Yes. I figure anything that works on me is less likely to work on you, and vice versa, if this is...."
    "Sounds reasonable."
    I should know better, I really should. We headed down the hall, passing by small offices where AMC's people churned out their products; I continued my scanning. The room Peter was supposed to be in had been insulated against me.
    "I can't see through that wall; that's very interesting. Specially because most people don't even know I can do that."
    Scott stuck a pseudopod under the door to take a look around; the lights were out, and heavy shades had been drawn down over the window, and then curtains over those. "Should I knock?"
    "Do."
    He tapped on the door.
    "Hello?" a groggy voice replied.
    "Mr. Paulson?" I asked.
    "Yes?"
    "I know you're not feeling too well, but I wanted to ask you a question."
    "Okay...."
    "Can I come in?"
    "I'd rather not," he said.
    "I suppose it can wait for another time...."
    "No," he sounded more alert, but there was something strange about his voice. "What's the question? You know I just want to help in any way."
    "Scott, you want to turn the lights on?"
    He did, and screamed. That was the forcefield going up, severing his pseudopod. The rest of him collapsed in a puddle on this side of the door. Instinct brought my shields to life almost instantaneously; something bounced off behind me. I glanced behind me and saw Midge holding a tazer.
    "That was an extraordinarily stupid thing to do," I informed her grimly, hoping that Scott was all right. The only other time I've seen him do that was the first time we fought the Wuxia.
    Back in the conference room, Wendell had fainted. Thunderbolt drew on the building's electrical systems for power, and Phoenix Talon vaulted the table on his way to the door.
    The door in front of me exploded, sending bits of Scott flying and throwing me and Midge back to the end of the corridor in a shower of splinters. In the doorway stood the Toy Man, his cloak billowing behind him.
    "Was the question perhaps, who is the most canny and dangerous opponent you've ever faced?" he asked.
    "Sure as hell isn't you," I snapped back, picking myself up. I had been expecting a cleverly concealed escape route if anything, and been just about as wrong as possible. The guys thundered around the corner. Phoenix Talon popped a flash, to no visible effect.
    The Toy Man lifted the hood of his cloak slightly. "I see you're still firing off a little early. And if I were to call you out now, do you think you would be able to keep your... guardians from saving you from another humiliating beating?" he taunted. Fortunately, Phoenix Talon was so angry at that point that I don't think he heard anything that was being said. There was a generator in his suit putting out an energy field that interfered with my ability to sense him; that was more than a little aggravating. "Come on," Peter/Paul invited with a beckoning hand. "Come on... well don't just stand there looking stupid. Maybe you'd like to fight someone else, a little more in your league."
    My god, he's gone completely around the fucking bend, I thought as the Toy Man continued baiting Talon.

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