“Yes, we do.” She looked at Rick, who was staring back at the men, not smiling. “We’ve talked extensively about this, and if you want the ratings, the prize money needs to be over the top. The finale has to air during the February sweeps.”
She looked at them and added, “Everything is pushing the limits on this show. Remember… sex, conflict, and danger. Lots of each.”
“I love the forehead cameras. Will people actually agree?”
“Of course they’ll agree. We’ll be flooded with applications.”
She glanced at her watch. “Our price for the broadcast rights is a floor of twenty-five million, gentlemen. You know how we work. We control everything, you control nothing. We both make lots of money. I have another meeting at HBO, so please take your time. You can have five minutes.”
Cynthia walked out of the office and back to the reception area, with Rick following her. Five minutes later, Carlton called them back in and said they wanted the show.
He smiled and said, “We’ll go thirty mil.”
Cynthia smiled and shook his hand. “Thanks, Carlton and Jayson. We’ll consider your offer with the others and get back to you soon.”
Inside, though, she knew that she’d found a home for Scavenger Hunt.
Opening Sequences
Karen wore the same clothes she’d worn for the trailer they’d used to sell the series: beige silk cami and a knee-length blue jean skirt. She hated the white boots. At first she’d complained but she didn’t have much of an argument. Cynthia ruled. Everybody knew that. If she told Karen to walk on stage dressed like the Queen of England, she’d do exactly that.
This was the only time in the hunt that the contestants would see each other, and she watched as they took glimpses around. The four teams were all standing in small pods in a semi-circle. Karen was in the center.
It was an arrangement that wouldn’t normally work, but the forehead cams everyone had gave all the footage they needed. Karen only had a temporary cam, since she wouldn’t be traveling with them. After today, she’d next see the winning team whenever they arrived in L.A.
She kept her smile going through the taping. This was their third take. In the first, Brittany from Team Hollywood looked like a stupid Barbie doll, not showing any emotion.
Jeez, lady, you have a chance at ten million fucking dollars!
In the second take, there was some problem with the sound level. The techies said something about interference that Karen didn’t understand or care about.
Take three.
She’d done all the intro stuff, explained the rules and the camera and the wristbands, and now all that was left was to have them pick their first destination.
Behind her stood a large wall with eight large plasma screens in two rows of four.
“Here are your clues!” she called. She waved her hand and white words appeared on each of the monitors. They’d stolen the general setup from Jeopardy!
The teams all stared at the words, and Karen looked around at each of them so her forecam would capture their expressions.
Team Harvard was a young group, all in their mid-twenties. The two guys stood on each side of a girl, as if protecting her. She looked wholesome and cute as she studied the clues. Hard to believe she was studying to be a cutthroat lawyer.
Team Hollywood stood next to them. The two older Latinos and the thirtyish young blonde who was married to one of them. Karen couldn’t remember which one was the husband. Brittany gritted her teeth and stared at the board as if sending laser beams at it from her eyes.
Karen moved on. She already didn’t like Brittany.
Team Genius. The third team was two men and one woman. Probably arrogant pigs, based on the team name. The two guys looked casual, almost uninterested. The girl stared eagerly.
And Team Superior. Three girls including the psycho lesbian that Karen knew Cynthia would provoke.
That’ll be fun.
Karen looked back to Team Harvard. They’d won the random draw and got to pick first. Karen wasn’t completely sure anything in this game was random, but whatever.
“Harvard. Which clue do you want?”
They whispered to each other, which was mostly pointless since their forecams would pick up every word clearly. Eventually, Joe said, “We’ll take the one that just says ‘Brr…’”
“Ah. You like cold weather in Boston?”
She took an envelope and started to hand it to Joe but Michael reached and grabbed it.
Okay, then, we know who’s running the show here.
He read the words on the envelope. “Your task is — ”
Then he opened it, like opening the winner’s envelope at the Academy Awards. A card slipped out and the three team members stared at it.
“Really?” Michael asked. “Cool.”
Chapter 2: Team Harvard
Joe - Somewhere Over the Caribbean
Joe Anderson looked out the window of the Boeing 737 and could see nothing but blackness with the occasional light flickering miles below. There was an island seven miles below him, but he had no idea which one.
A thought flashed through his mind. What in God’s name am I doing here?
Harvard Law students don’t just drop everything and get on a plane going to Colombia on a lark. Thank God it was over Christmas break, so he wouldn’t miss any classes.
Ten million dollars. That’s why he was there. At least that’s what everyone thought. True enough, that was part of the reason. Just not the main one.
Even though it was almost 4:00 a.m. New York time, he wasn’t tired. He’d tried to sleep but nothing was happening. Susan Cook sat in the middle seat beside him, her dark brown, wavy hair spilling down her yellow T-shirt.
Joe couldn’t help looking at her face. She was beautiful. Dark skin, very petite. He was glad she was sleeping so she couldn’t tell he was staring at her.
Susan was the real reason he was on the plane and this ridiculous journey. She asked him to go. It was as simple as that.
She’d given him that killer smile and pleaded with him to try out with her and Michael. There was no choice. He’d do anything she asked.
On her other side, holding her hand, was Michael. It was that hand that Joe stared at most, wondering how it would feel if he took Susan’s hand himself. Soft. Dainty. Warm.
Of course that couldn’t happen.
“Joe? You still awake? Feel like a chat?”
It was Bea.
Joe could hear the quiet hum of the engines as the jet flew farther and farther south… farther and farther from civilization. Wasn’t Colombia run by drug lords or something? At least they would only be there six hours before catching the next flight on this leg of the scavenger hunt.
“Maybe it’d be better when we land?” he asked. Even as he said it, he knew it’d be useless. Their contract called for them to provide interviews whenever Bea wanted.
He unclipped the seat belt and turned around to face her. She was in the seat behind Susan and had obviously already brushed her hair so that it would look good on his forehead cam.
The plane wasn’t that hot but she wore just a simple blue tank top and her ubiquitous sunglasses. When they first met at the studio, she’d told the team they were prescription glasses and she always wore them. Nobody had asked her.
“How come you’re not sleeping?”
Joe shrugged. “Guess the whole thing is finally sinking in and I’m running on adrenaline.”
“And Coke.”
“Yes, and Coke. Are they a sponsor?”
Bea laughed. “I haven’t a clue. I hope Pepsi isn’t.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Tell me about the trip so far.”
“Well, the flight is okay. It’s a little cramped but we took the first flight leaving JFK. Michael wanted to go business class, since we have so much money, but Susan convinced him not to.”
“We have all that. Tell us something new.”
Joe thought for a moment and sudde
nly felt overcome with drowsiness. Maybe I should get some sleep after all.
“I don’t really know anything new. You’re recording everything that’s happening.”
“How does it feel to have her sleeping right there beside you?”
He looked at Bea and felt… fear. Did she know how he felt?
“What do you mean? She’s just sleeping. I’m just glad I haven’t had to go to the bathroom yet and have to climb over her.” He pretended to laugh.
“Come on, Joe. We know how you really feel about her. You can’t hide anything from us.”
Her eyes were hidden behind the dark glasses but her mouth was smiling, almost laughing. Her arms were rippling with muscles, and for a second Joe had a vision of arm-wrestling her, knowing he’d lose in a flash.
Who knew that a camera operator could be built like a body-builder?
“I’d better get some sleep.”
“Tell me, Joe.”
He hesitated and glanced at Susan and Michael. They were both still asleep.
“How do you know?”
“We know everything about you.”
He shook his head and turned back around. He slipped his shoes off and put his seat belt back on, finally closing his eyes and falling to sleep as he thought of touching Susan’s hand.
Susan - Three Years Earlier
Susan Cook found herself hiding a bit behind Joe as they entered the rented house off campus. The place was packed, as she knew it would be. The smell of marijuana and beer hit her as soon as they entered the front hallway. She wasn’t much into either, but being the new kid on campus, she wanted to fit in, so she grabbed a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon when it was thrust at her and took a sip.
Two sips. Gotta be cool.
Joe smiled and nodded at a group standing in the living room. A couple of guys from the kitchen waved at him.
How the heck does he know so many people? Susan wondered.
She and Joe were both freshmen, so this was their first Harvard party. They shared some classes and he was really the only friend she had on campus.
She could feel drops of sweat sliding down from under her breasts. The damned dress was too heavy for early autumn. She should have worn something lighter instead of black wool. Too late now.
Besides, it showed her off awfully nicely.
She took a longer sip of her beer and made sure she was an appropriate distance from Joe. Not too close, so he wouldn’t get the wrong impression, but close enough that others would think they were together. Tonight was just a quick meet and greet — an icebreaker to get her into college mode. She wasn’t looking for any distractions from law school.
The distraction found her anyway.
“Hey, my man!”
Susan looked up to see a tall black man walking toward her and Joe. He smiled and held his arms out and was about to hug Joe when he stopped short.
“Oh. You’re not my man Johnny. Sure look like him, though. You got a brother, brother?”
Joe laughed, but Susan didn’t get the joke. She just took control of the introductions.
“We’re Joe and Susan. Law school. Who are you?”
“I’m Michael Fletcher, my lady. At your service.”
He bowed as if she were royalty and when he rose, he took her hand and kissed it.
Wow.
For once, Susan was glad of the dark skin she inherited from her father, since Michael wouldn’t see her blushing.
“You’re law, right? Medical for me, Miss Susan.”
The party house was halfway between Harvard Law and Harvard Medical.
Joe stepped a few inches closer and smiled at Susan. “This is my roommate.”
Susan nodded and found herself staring into Michael’s eyes. Brown, shining eyes. They matched his skin. He had a black moustache and goatee and his teeth were as white as rice.
“I’m glad to meet you,” she finally said. She broke her eye contact, mentally slapping herself for being so interested. “Joe’s my friend.”
“Joe! Who looks like Johnny! How you doin’, brother?”
Joe laughed. “I only left you a half hour ago.”
“Well there you go! Are you two like a couple?”
“No,” Susan said. “We just have some of the same classes.”
“Well, let’s share some other things, then.”
Michael lit a joint and took a drag before passing it to Susan. She politely declined and passed it on to Joe, who helped himself.
Something about him.
Susan knew she’d been trapped by Michael’s sense of fun. She needed that. She always gravitated toward fun.
Susan - Ushuaia, Argentina
Susan sat on a large boulder overlooking the sea. She wasn’t quite sure, but she thought it was likely the South Atlantic Ocean. There was a light breeze blowing and she imagined that far away, over the curve of the horizon, lay Antarctica.
Their first destination seemed like an impossible dream two days ago when they pulled the details of their task out of the envelope in the New York studio of Reality Television.
Go to the Transantarctic Mountains. Follow your GPS device to retrieve a meteorite. You must bring the meteorite back with you.
The breeze felt nice. She was dead tired after traveling almost nonstop for 48 hours, but she was amazed it was warmer here at the bottom of the world than it had been in Manhattan.
That wouldn’t last, she knew, when they actually went to the southern continent.
She wore a canary-blue sweater, so light it almost wasn’t there. Even so, the ocean breeze didn’t chill her.
Beside her was her tablet computer. The brand name was missing and the casing custom-built. She knew the software running on it filtered her access to the Internet, so they couldn’t find out anything in the news about the show. She didn’t care about that right now. She was staring at a spreadsheet and she didn’t like what it told her.
“You okay, sweets?”
She smiled as she turned to face Michael. Smiled not because she was happy — she was too tired to really be happy — but because if he saw her with a frown, that’s all he’d see. He’d drill her with never-ending exhaustive questions, worrying she was upset with him for some reason. Everything became personal with Michael. He cherished their relationship and constantly checked to be sure she was doing good. He seemed to spend every minute reading her face, wanting to make sure she was happy at all times. It was nice to have somebody so devoted to her, but sometimes she really just wanted to be herself.
“Hey. Isn’t this nice?”
“Yeah. We gotta get moving, though. Two fucking days sitting here.”
She nodded. It was frustrating for all of them. At first, it was rush, rush, rush… from New York to Bogota to Lima to Montevideo to Buenos Aires… and finally to the end of the world at Ushuaia, where they hit a wall.
The fastest way to get to Antarctica was to book the Continent Hopper, a private company that operated a Eurocopter AS350B2 Squirrel helicopter from Ushuaia across the Ross Sea to Antarctica. The company promised to take them wherever they had to go.
But they couldn’t leave till Friday morning. The copter was out on another tour, so they’d had to cool their heels for 48 hours.
48 hours during which the other teams were racing to meet their destinations and retrieve their treasures so they could move on to the next location.
“Don’t worry, baby. The other teams will hit roadblocks, too.”
She nodded. “I hope so.”
He grinned at her. “I told you, we’re gonna win this thing. When we started, everyone thought we had a one-in-four chance, cause there’s four teams. But, we’ve got it in the bag.”
“I wish I had your confidence.”
“Ten million dollars, baby. We’re going to have our destiny in our own hands. Nothing can stop us from doing anything. Money is power, and the man can’t hold us back any more.”
She kept her smile on her face, but she hated hearing him talk like that. Nobody was
holding him back from doing anything. If he took things more seriously, he could succeed at whatever he wanted. Sometimes, he just preferred to play the class clown.
“Your medical degree will give you anything you want, too, you know.”
Michael shrugged and laughed, and she felt the same attraction she’d felt when they first met. He might be a bit of a goof, but he was her goof.
He took her hand and kissed it and slid next to her to sit on a piece of the same boulder.
“Doesn’t it feel like we should fall off the planet?” he asked. “We’re upside down.”
She laughed and hit his shoulder before turning the tablet so Michael could see her spreadsheet.
“I’m worried about the money. We should talk to Joe and figure out what to do.”
“No need, baby. We can figure it out. Just you and me.”
“We’re not cutting him out. He’s part of the team, too.”
“Yeah.”
Michael stared out to the water, and Susan wondered if he was thinking of the frozen continent so far away. She ran a finger across his hand and again noticed how dark his skin was. Even though her own skin was a light mocha, it looked so white compared to him.
“You know the rules,” he finally whispered. “We don’t all have to finish. Just you and me.”
Susan stared at him, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“We can’t do that. We’re a team,” she said. “The three of us.”
He nodded. “Yeah, of course we are. Forget I said that.”
The expression on his face told her that his comment wouldn’t soon be forgotten by either of them.
“Let’s go find him,” she said. “We’re already running out of money and we need to figure it out.”
Bea - Ushuaia
Bea read the private message on her computer again to be sure she got the story right. She wanted to laugh, but Joe was right there and eventually wouldn’t see this as very funny.
The idiots still hadn’t clued in that they had no secrets on Scavenger Hunt. Everything they did or said was captured by their forehead cameras.
Scavenger Hunt Page 2
