by Anita Oh
“What? No!” said Peg. “I was the one who had the vision, who made everyone go along with it. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine.”
Koko threw a pillow at him. “I wanted to go to the concert too. I got the tickets. I’m just as guilty. We all went along with it, so we’re all equally to blame.”
“I’m not,” said Thorne. “I said it was a bad idea, and I was right. But I don’t blame you guys. I can be the bigger person and admit that. If anyone’s at fault here, it’s clearly Eli Gale. It was his evil ring that glowed, and his evil concert that we were photographed at. This is probably all some evil ploy he cooked up because he’s scared we’ll outshine him.”
Audrey couldn’t believe what she was hearing. At first she thought he was joking, but he didn’t laugh, and when she thought about it, she realized he’d always said mean things about Eli.
“Eli is nice,” Audrey told him.
Thorne snorted. “I know you’re gullible because you were raised by wolves, but Eli Gale is not a nice guy. Nobody gets to the top of this profession by being nice. He’s a ruthless, cutthroat shark, and if he’s nice to you, it’s because he thinks you’re a sardine and he wants to lure you in and eat you.”
Audrey shook her head, tracing the outline of her empathy ring without thinking about it. “You’re wrong,” she told him. She’d felt Eli’s feelings, and none of them were mean. “You’re wrong about sharks too.”
“You’re a child. And a sardine. And a feral cat. You’ve stumbled into this world, and you know nothing about it. It’s lucky for you that the president put you into this group with people who’ll look out for you, because out there in the real world, with the Eli Gales and the Maddie & Matts, you would get eaten alive.”
Audrey wanted to be mad at him, but behind all his insults, she got that he was trying to be nice to her, to protect her. Maybe she was getting the hang of this peopling thing after all.
“You guys will look out for me?” she asked.
“Of course,” said Peg.
“Unless the president flame-grills us tomorrow,” said Koko. “Then I’ll use you as a human shield.”
Audrey grinned at her, at all three of them, but she didn’t say anything in response. Something warm and soft was blooming in her chest, and she thought that any words might scare it away.
Chapter Twenty-One
The president wasn’t wearing her sunglasses. That was the first thing Audrey noticed when the four of them were led into her office to meet their doom. She took it as a bad sign. Eyes of fire were probably never a good sign. The four of them stood in a line in front of the president’s desk with their heads bowed. The president sucked on her e-cigarette, exhaling clouds of smoke with a huff. She didn’t speak for a very long time.
“I assume that if any of you had a reasonable explanation for this, you’d have been rushing to tell me,” she said eventually, after the smoke had nearly filled the room.
“President, it’s my fault,” said Peg. “I had a vision—”
“It’s not just your fault,” said Thorne. “We all—”
The president cut him off. “The company has a department which specifically deals with any supernatural gifts that may conflict with or compromise your work obligations. I’m sure you’re aware of it, as there’s an entire section of your contracts regarding the process you need to go through with them.
“This makes me wonder why you didn’t go through official channels for this matter. There can only be three reasons for it. Please correct me if I’m wrong. Either you A) had an ulterior and possibly nefarious purpose for attending the Tempest concert in ridiculous disguises, B) you decided to bypass official channels because you’re either too lazy or you thought you were entitled to special treatment, or C) you still haven’t bothered to thoroughly read through your contracts.” She huffed out more smoke. “So, which is it?”
“C,” the four of them mumbled.
“We’ve been so busy preparing for the concert,” said Thorne. “That’s been our priority.”
“Continue in this manner, and being too busy definitely won’t be an issue,” the president snapped. “Perhaps you should spend the morning reading through your contracts while I think of a suitable punishment.” She double-huffed.
Audrey thought reading through that massive stack of paper was more than punishment enough, but she could see the president’s point. They did keep getting caught out on the details. Still, it was optimistic to think it would only take them one morning to get through all that.
The president had meetings, so the four of them sat in the company cafeteria, drinking stale coffee while they read through their contracts. Koko took down notes on her phone of anything important and said she’d share them with the group once they were done.
“Do you guys have this one?” asked Peg. “Employee will not be seen riding a bicycle unless hired to do so as part of agency-approved work. This also includes wearing cycling gear.”
“How far into it are you?” Thorne asked, flicking through the pages of his contract. He’d only made it around ten pages before staring vaguely into space and drumming his fingers on the table, obviously resenting the time this was taking away from the concert rehearsal.
“About a third of the way,” said Peg. “I’m an expert skimmer, you know.”
“Did you guys see when they flew across the stadium last night?” Thorne asked. “I was thinking we could do something similar, only with the Supernova theme, as if we were shooting stars.”
“Write it down, and we’ll talk about it later,” Koko said, not looking up from where she had documents spread out across the table in piles, notes scribbled on all of them. “Your contract might be different from ours, so you really should read your own.”
Audrey was with Thorne. The president seemed to make up things and add them to the contract as they suited her. She knew they hadn’t read the contracts, so she could put anything in there. They should just assume anything they weren’t directly told to do wasn’t allowed and go back to rehearsals.
Audrey was fine with the choreography herself, but when the four of them did it together, their timing didn’t always match. She’d really noticed it with Tempest. Not to mention the fact that she had only learned half the lyrics of the songs they were doing. Plus all the other little things the others took for granted, like knowing where to stand and how to change costumes in under 90 seconds. Even with all the staff to help them, they still needed to figure out a lot of the staging. She’d had no idea of the scope of it until she saw the Tempest concert, but now she was beginning to feel overwhelmed. It was pointless being forced to read the contracts when they’d already signed them. It was wasteful. She’d reread the same sentence over and over without taking in its meaning.
“Oh,” Peg said, his tone making the other three look up. “That’s why she’s making us read it now.”
“You’ve got it too?” Koko asked, reaching for a small stack of papers that were covered in notes.
“What?” asked Thorne.
“If the employee violates the contract three or more times before they have turned an initial profit, all remuneration must be reimbursed to the company in full, including wages and expenses.”
“Everything?” Thorne asked, flipping to a random point in the contract to see if it was in his as well. “We’d have to pay back everything the company spent on us?”
“That’s including our recording costs, costumes, living expenses, everything they’ve spent on the concert…” said Koko. “It’s a lot of money. Especially for us. There’s a clause that backdates it to the time we started at the academy.”
Thorne turned pale. “Your cosmetic dentistry?”
Koko nodded. “Everything.”
Peg continued reading. “If the reimbursement cannot be made immediately at the time of the infraction, the employee must work at a reduced wage until the amount has been repaid in full.”
“That’s indentured servitude,” said Koko. “And there
’s no end date to it, either. We could be here literally forever, especially if she owns our souls. We’d be her slaves. If she decides to restrict our activities, we wouldn’t be making enough to pay it back, either. I guess that explains people like Suzie. I’ve always wondered why she stayed on here after she got married and the president wouldn’t let her perform anymore.”
The other three looked miserable. They’d wanted this: the music and the group and the fans. It wasn’t being stuck working for the company that bothered them, it was being stuck in a job they didn’t want, trapped there with no end in sight — looking at their dreams but never being able to reach them.
Audrey was surprised to realize she wanted this as well. Maybe she’d signed up as an escape from her situation, to defeat the alpha, but now that she was a part of this group, she wanted the group to do well. She liked the dancing and the singing, and most of all, she liked these three people, who had stood by her even when all she’d done was drag them down.
“How many times have we broken the contract now?” she asked.
“It depends on your interpretation,” said Peg. “If you count last night as one incident, then it’s two, I suppose. But if you count each individual infraction last night…”
“We’re going to be shelling peanuts in Argentina forever,” said Koko.
Audrey looked to Peg for his usual optimism. When he didn’t say anything, she thought she should give it a go.
“It’s okay,” she told Koko. “If we fail, the world will end soon anyway.”
Nobody seemed very cheered up by that.
Audrey struggled through the rest of her contract, taking Peg’s advice and skimming. If you skipped all the legal jargon and looked out for the key words, it wasn’t too awful. Most of it boiled down to protecting the image that the agency set for you. Even if she’d read it in full, she still would’ve signed it.
“Okay,” Koko said when she’d finally finished writing notes. “I think I’m ready to mount our defense.”
“On what grounds?” asked Peg.
“On the grounds that last night none of us did more than one thing wrong each. Peg should’ve consulted the company about his vision. Audrey was supposed to stay away from Eli. Thorne, you’re guilty of bad fashion. And, well, I’m basically flawless, but if the team has to cop a hit, then I’ll take it too.”
Audrey snorted.
“She’ll know you used your power on Snell,” Thorne said. “Even if he’s kept quiet until now, don’t think that means you’re off the hook. It just means he’s plotting against us.”
“He had hold of Audrey!” said Koko.
“I know, and I’m not saying you did the wrong thing,” said Thorne. “But don’t think that if she doesn’t mention it, it’s because she doesn’t know. She always knows.”
“There are a lot of rules here,” said Peg. “The president could stretch what we did to fit some of them if she wants us out.”
That was the scary part. It was all dependent on how the president felt. If her meetings had gone badly, if someone had said something to annoy her – any number of things could turn the tide against them. Audrey could think of worse things than shelling peanuts in Argentina if she was with Supernova, but she didn’t want the others to miss out on their dreams. She didn’t want them losing their souls. She still felt as if the whole thing was her fault, so she was determined that if Koko’s defense didn’t hold up, she’d take the blame for everything herself.
As they headed back into the president’s office, Audrey thought of what she’d say. She was prepared to lie, even, if it meant Supernova could go on without her.
“Save it,” the president said before they’d gotten the whole way into the room. She had her sunglasses back on, at least. “I know what you’re all going to say, and I don’t need to hear it.”
“But, President…” Koko began.
The president raised a hand to silence her. “You read the contracts, and you found a way to argue that you shouldn’t be punished under the three-infraction rule. It’s admirable, really. You’re a smart kid. And if I don’t agree to that, each of you is planning to convince me that you alone are the responsible party. Do you think this doesn’t happen with every single group that’s ever walked through those doors? Do you think I’d ever make any money if I punished every single dumb thing a bunch of teenagers did? But now you know the consequences, so I know I don’t need to worry about you doing something this stupid again. Right?”
They mumbled their agreement.
“So, now that that’s out of the way, I can get on with punishing you.” She sounded gleeful at the prospect. “It might be better to just show you. Turn around.”
They turned to face the pink wall behind the seating area. Audrey really didn’t like having her back to the president and kept glancing over her shoulder.
“Relax, Audrey. If I was going to stab you in the back, I’d doing it by selling you to the Fifth Shadow for money. Fortunately for you, you’re much more valuable to me alive. Now, watch.”
A screen lowered from the ceiling. The room went dark. Epic music began to play, like the start of a battle march. Audrey had a bad feeling about this.
Something started to move on the screen, and after a moment, Audrey realized it was grainy footage of the four of them fleeing from the stadium.
“DANGER! MAYHEM! HIJINX!” a man’s voice boomed around the room. “Four members, one treasure, and only one hour to find it. Are you ready to join the SUPER EXPLOSIVE TREASURE HUNT?”
The words “COMING SOON” flashed up on the screen, then it faded to the GEM TV logo. Audrey and the others stared as the screen rose and the lights came back on.
“What do you think?” asked the president.
For a moment, none of them spoke. Then, as their leader, Thorne spoke for them. “Our punishment is a television show?”
“I’ve been thinking of launching a paid subscription service through the Sparkling Gems website, with exclusive video content not available on GEM TV. It went live an hour ago, and we’ve already got twenty thousand subscribers.”
When Audrey turned around, it was to the president’s massive grin. She was starting to think that grin was more frightening than the fire eyes.
“You’re telling people last night was part of this show?” Koko said. “They’re believing it?”
The president shrugged. “The only thing people love more than seeing beautiful people do amazing things is seeing beautiful people humiliate themselves. You’ll make a thirty-minute episode every week, and you’ll do every stupid and degrading thing that the production team come up with. The first thing will be to film more footage wearing the same outfits as last night so we can form some sort of cohesive narrative out of it. The premise is that you have something you need to steal from the Tempest dressing room while they’re onstage. The production team will talk you through it.”
Even though Audrey had no doubt she’d be terrible at that sort of thing and not one bit entertaining, she thought it sounded like fun. She glanced at the others to see their reactions, but only Thorne seemed bothered. If they hadn’t been getting off so lightly, she had no doubt he’d be arguing against it.
“Are you sure we’re ready for our own show?” asked Koko.
The president shrugged. “It’s costing next to nothing and saving us from a scandal, so it’s fine, even if it bombs. It might be a good learning experience for both you and the marketing team. You can just do the one for now. After the concert, you can take it on more seriously. The main thing for now is to keep a lid on this whole mess. I’ve cancelled your rehearsals for tomorrow so you can film then. After that, concentrate on the concert, and don’t get into any more trouble.”
More than her words, her tone of voice said she was serious. With a wave, she dismissed them, and they hurried out, hardly believing their luck.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Thorne was grumpy. Grumpier than usual. He wasn’t even trying to hide it, so Audrey was st
aying well out of his way. A grumpy Thorne was not a Thorne whose attention she wanted.
She didn’t know why Thorne was so grumpy. It wasn’t as if he had to pour himself into a catsuit again when he was still chafed from the last time. She watched him chat with the makeup and hair people as she was covered in talcum powder and poured into the catsuit. He was never grumpy with the staff. Maybe he was a little less chatty with them than he normally would’ve been, but he smiled and answered politely as they painted his face and arranged the replacement wig.
Koko and Peg had both arrived early to prepare, so they were already in the other room, waiting with the production staff. They were so excited about filming. Audrey wasn’t sure what to expect, but she figured it had to be better than a lifetime of indentured servitude or losing her soul, so she wasn’t too sure what Thorne’s problem was. Maybe he’d slept funny.
By the time Audrey’s catsuit was fully zipped up, Thorne was waiting with the others.
“We don’t want to do anything too complicated,” said the head producer, Clive. “Stick as closely as you can to the characters the marketing team gave you, but otherwise it’s unscripted. We’ll start filming when we get to the venue. Thorne, you can introduce the show and what you’ll be doing. We’ll have a prompt card for you to read from, but try to get the others involved in the conversation. Then we’ll divide you into two groups based on a coin toss, but it will be Thorne and Audrey versus Koko and Pegasus. There will be an object you need to retrieve from Tempest’s dressing room. We want most of the filming to be finished before the fans start to arrive for tonight’s concert, but obviously we’ll need to film some shots later to stay consistent with the footage that was leaked online. Even though the goal is to retrieve the object, your main focus should be entertaining the audience and showing that you’re likeable and relatable. Except you, Thorne. They want you to maintain your untouchable, princelike image.”
