Chapter 43: Golden Boy

“Jeryl, who are you wearing tonight?”

I wanted to scowl at the rude reporter covering the red carpet going into the Emmy’s, but kept a fake, film-friendly smile on my face.

Jeryl pulled it off much better than I did; her smile looked genuine.

“It’s Ferre by Dior.” She not only smiled, she did a deliberate turn to show off the plunging back of the translucent lace bodice, proving she had on no bra and a fabulously, femininely muscled, evenly tanned back.

The snapping cameras sounded like locusts in the wheat.

She deftly took my arm as she finished her turn and we continued down the carpet. I let her handle the fashion questions and just smiled as we made our way through the gauntlet. By the time we were safely inside, I was relieved. Every year, Jeryl promised a variety of sexual rewards if I played nice with the cameras and had a happy smile for the crowd. As the executive producers of the show, we had the dubious pleasure of receiving the award for best prime time reality-competition show for the past two years since the inaugural award.

Tom had laughed at my complaining. He had been honored to accept the various awards and accolades for directing, editing and cinematography. I knew those awards had been warranted. If not for Tom and his team’s work, the new category would never have been created. After improving and reducing the size of the cameras they used, I was proud of the work as well. We had licensed the technology to Kodak, breathing new life into their film based business with higher quality digital sensors and storage.

“Paul, are you ready to take another walk to the podium this year?” Tom asked as he handed me a drink in the waiting area outside the auditorium.

I smiled and took a sip. “Let’s not count the chickens before they hatch, Tom. There are some new shows nominated this year.”

He shook his head. “We’re still winning the ratings and critical reviews. How many other shows can put their contestants in space?” he asked softly, with a grin. “Can you imagine their special effects bill?”

Last year’s finale had included a sub-orbital demonstration flight from California to Australia with a solid ten minutes of zero-g with the interns floating and playing on camera. The viewer response was tremendous. Applications for internships on the show had increased twenty-fold and spanned the globe in terms of interest. It seemed that we had touched on an unarticulated, world-wide dream.

I smiled at Tom and then paused to look at Jeryl, who was returning from the ladies’ room with Billy, who had come with Tom. She caught me looking at her and gave me a stunning smile. She did look amazing at these things. This year she was wearing a sleek black gown with a translucent black lace bodice overlaid with black flower silhouettes in a pleasant pattern that seemed to twine up her torso. Her shoulders were bare, but the lace material formed partial sleeves from just below the shoulder to her forearms. Her hair was pulled back into an elegant bun, highlighting her delicate, strong neck.

She presented her cheek for me to kiss and deftly plucked the drink from my hand to take a sip.

“Let’s skip this show and go home. I want to spend a couple of hours slowly sliding you out of that lovely dress,” I whispered in her ear.

She laughed. “You can do that later. Behave yourself for a couple more hours and I’ll give you a trip around the world to remember.”

I kissed her again and then turned back to Billy and Tom.

“So, Billy, do you have some remarks and thank-yous ready, as well? You’ve got an executive producer credit this year.”

Billy grinned. “Mine will be quick, since I just have to thank you three.”

Tom nodded. “Mine are the same as Billy and the same as last year.”

“Hey,” Jeryl said. “It was originally your idea,” she reminded us all.

“Didn’t we have nearly the same conversation last year?” I asked. It sounded almost identical.

Ninety minutes later, after a thunderous ovation, we all said our thank-yous. Jeryl made sure to thank our fans and viewers, while I thanked my supportive, loving wife and Tom and Billy thanked us for believing in them. Finally, just before we got the hook, I stepped back to the mike.

“One last group of people I am extremely grateful to and who make the show possible. Thanks to all of our Interns, past, present, and future.”

The crowd roared its own appreciation again and we headed back stage.

Jeryl gave me a saucy smile as she sat at the breakfast table in Deer Valley the next morning. She was in my red silk pajama shirt, which I had worn for all of two minutes last night before tumbling into bed and having her make good on her promises of carnal delight. The shirt was long enough to cover everything, but she flashed her black panties at me, as if to answer my unasked question.

I smiled and shook my head.

“Mommy, you looked beautiful on TV last night,” Ali said.

“Thank you dear. I’m glad you liked my dress,” she said. “How did Daddy look?”

Ali glanced at me and smiled. “He looked like a man.”

I laughed, glad my daughter was not thinking of men as being pretty or handsome yet.

I looked at a file folder with some clippings Tamara had already compiled this morning.

“It wasn’t just the family that thought you looked wonderful, dear,” I said. “You made the top ten best dressed list.”

Jeryl shrugged but I could tell she was pleased. Most of the time, she didn’t look for the spotlight. But the red carpet seemed to bring out her competitive nature.

“So how is school going, Ali?” I asked.

“Good. Can Katie come over to play this week? I didn’t get to see her all summer.”

Jeryl smiled. “I’ll call her mother and see what we can do. How are your classes this year?”

She shrugged. “The same. You and Daddy do more difficult reading and math with me already.”

I frowned, as the comments I had made on Jay Leno coming back to me. “Maybe we should talk to your teachers to get you some more advanced work,” I said.

“Daddy! I’m only in second grade. I don’t need harder work to do.”

Her serious expression and tone made both Jeryl and me laugh. I even caught a smile on the corners of Mrs. Eccles’ mouth.

“Okay, but if you cause a distraction in class or school, we will have that talk. Deal?”

She nodded and resumed her breakfast. I got up from the table and headed back to the bedroom to get dressed. I had delivery duty this morning and then we’d both be in the office to meet the orbital interns. Jyl had left the day before, insisting to be treated like her fellow interns, which we both appreciated.

A couple of hours later, we were in our Park City offices. We had chosen to build rather than buy here, and had a modern three-story building that included a forty-person auditorium, in addition to a lot of meeting space. Tom and Billy had their primary offices here, along with the editing crew. We used the auditorium to screen episodes of the show during the editing process. Today, it served a different purpose. Sixteen nervous interns sat in the stadium seating along with a good portion of the crew we would be using this year. Typically, we captured everything from arrival onward, on camera. With the extended nature of this effort, we had to do a few things differently.

Tom took to the podium first.

“Welcome, Interns. I’m Tom Harding, one of the executive producers of the show.”

He got some decent applause as he paused for a breath. Obviously, they were all fans.

“Today is going to be ‘off-script’ as we like to say, since this show is actually going to be a bit different from our regular season. Before we get into the details of that, I want to introduce a few other folks that you probably won’t recognize and a few you will.”

“First, let me introduce a former contestant and the hard-working lady that ran our selection process this year, Tamara O’Donnell.” Tamara waved from the side of the room as Tom continued. “Tamara will be performing part-time duties this year as a co-producer. Her full-time job, however, is one of three personal assistants for Paul, who you’ll meet in a minute. If she is telling you to do something, please assume it’s coming from myself or one of the other executive producers.”

Heads nodded.

“Next is Allen Stenzel. He, too, is one of Paul’s PAs. Allen has been intimately involved in laying out many of the challenges your teams will be facing in the show. He also has a master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois.” Allen waved from beside Tamara.

Tom went on to introduce the camera unit leads before motioning to Billy.

“Billy Salz is also an Executive Producer on the show. While she will be spending most of her time gearing up for the next regular season, she may also lend a hand on our efforts.”

Tom glanced at Jeryl and me before continuing. “The other two executive producers you should obviously recognize. Paul and Jeryl Taylor.”

Everyone clapped as we stepped forward. I continued to the front of the room as they settled back down.

“I’ll add my welcome to Tom’s and explain a little about what is different with this show from our regular show and why it matters.”

The crew already knew most of my briefing but I was glad to see everyone was still focused on me.

“Firstly, this show won’t premier until the holidays, next year. With eighteen months to film, you can probably guess some of the differences. The challenges are going to be much harder and require more than just superb individual effort. We will assign teams that we hope will last for the entire season and beyond.”

I paused to let the words sink in before adding, “Yes, beyond.” After a brief pause, I continued with, “Since this will be a nearly two-year process, we will be completing all of the paperwork to make you employees for the duration. If you and/or your teammates want to continue working together, I’ll commit to making that happen.”

There was a murmur in the room and I raised my hand to quiet them down. “We’ll have William Hart, the head of the HR department at PT Innovations come in to explain the pay and benefits structure and to answer any questions you may have. From your application forms, we know that all of you are single. If there have been any surprise marriages, please let us know.”

There was a chuckle in the room.

“Next, Lila Greenwood from our security department will come in to review our standard non-disclosure agreement and talk about security, both in the company and on the projects you will be working on. Some of the challenges concern, literally, billion dollar ideas. Please pay close attention to the warnings and procedures that Lila discusses.”

“After a fun filled morning of paperwork, you’re going to get physicals and have some personal gear issued. Most of the time I’m not big on uniforms, but for filming and safety purposes, you’re going to have fairly uniform apparel. You don’t have to be “in uniform” all of the time but for many evolutions, you will.”

“Now then, this is a non-shooting segment. We normally have cameras going nearly twenty-four/seven but then we film thirteen episodes in right around twelve weeks, so we need all that footage to edit and produce our final cut. On the regular show, we tell interns to assume there are cameras on them unless they are in a clearly marked no-camera area, like the restrooms. For this show, the same rules apply during the week days, between six A.M. and ten P.M. Outside of those hours, you will be ‘off-camera,’ so to speak, unless we are doing a specific evolution we want to capture for the show. In those cases, we’ll let you know before we start filming.”

“Now, before we continue, are there any questions?”

A few folks shook their heads but one hand was raised.

“Yes?” I asked the African-American woman with an almost-buzz cut hair do.

“If we’re not in uniform, what should we wear?”

“The company dress code will be covered by William but, essentially, we’re business casual if outside vendors or partners are meeting with us and California casual the rest of the time. We’ve defined California Casual to be shorts, pants, skirts or kilts within two inches of your knees, a collared shirt or blouse, and closed-toed shoes or sandals.”

Several people smiled, just as most of our employees did when they heard the policy.

“You may ask ‘why closed-toed shoes?’, which gets to one of the reasons you’ll wear uniforms for some activities. Safety has to be at th top of mind for you and the crew. You’re going to face some very uncertain environments and potentially dangerous challenges and tasks. We’ll be doing proper safety briefs before any significant evolution that presents a potential risk. We do these for our filming crew as well as for all of you to make sure we’re all on the same page. If you miss a safety brief or fail to comply with the safety protocols we’ve established, you may be pulled from your team, the show, and employment. We have sixteen interns now, and I want the same number going home at the end of filming. Are we clear on this requirement?”

The faces were somber. I was glad to see Jyl was taking it as seriously as everyone else.

“Okay. Once we get through issuing gear and getting you settled into your accommodations, were going to round out the day with a team fitness test before dinner. Everything that occurs outside this room, with the exception of your physicals and changing, will be ‘on-camera’.”

Jeryl stepped up as I stepped back.

“I’ll add my welcome to Paul’s and Tom’s. We’re going to do filmed introductions this afternoon, but I’d like to have everyone briefly stand up, tell us your name and a brief background. Let’s start with you.” She pointed to the person in the second row, at the opposite end from Jyl.

Each person stood, stated their names, and occupation or area of study. Jyl went last. No one seemed to connect her to Jeryl’s maiden name.

“Thank you. While she didn’t mention it and no one seemed to recognize my maiden name, Jyl Salaway is one of my older sisters. Since I know it will come out, sooner or later, I’m choosing sooner. I want everyone to know that she did not try to leverage our relationship to get on the show. She was selected by the other producers based on her skills as a doctor and personal accomplishments. If anyone has a concern about her participation, feel free to discuss it with Tom. Hopefully, you all know enough about the show to realize that one person has very little direct impact on another person’s individual scoring. This is even more true for this show, since you will primarily be judged as a team.” Jeryl paused for a beat. “And if you want to give her a ration of shit, feel free. She deserves it for past misdeeds, I’m sure.”

People laughed and the ice seemed to be broken.

“Okay. Let’s hit a few rules we like to share with the Interns when the cameras are not rolling.”

I stepped back next to her.

“One, we have safety rules to be followed. Everything else is more of a guideline,” I said.

“Two,” Jeryl said. “You are all adults. We expect you to behave like one. If you’re indiscreet, odds are it will be caught on camera. If it’s dangerous, we may talk about it. If it’s just careless or embarrassing, you might be explaining it to your mother, your kids or your significant other when it airs on prime-time. Consider yourselves warned.”

“Three,” I said. “The only stupid question is the one you don’t ask or find an answer to.”

“Four,” Jeryl said. “The only ways to fail are to not push hard enough or to not learn from your mistakes. We don’t expect perfection, but we do expect you to learn and grow.”

“Five,” I said. “Your team and teamwork are critical in this season. The team cannot succeed if all of its members don’t succeed; and an individual without their team behind them will never be considered successful.”

We let our guidelines settle in for a minute.

“Now, how would you all like to know what you’ve really gotten yourselves into?” I asked.

Smiles and a few frowns appeared in the first two rows.

“The reason we are taking nearly six times as long to film this show, is really simple. Collectively, you will all be defining the first major mission to space beyond orbital placement of satellites or space stations. Additionally, the winning team will be the on the primary crew for that mission.”

A murmur ran through the group.

“That may sound like a lofty, long-term goal, but I promise you all that you will become some of the most qualified astronauts in the world before Christmas this year, and likely log more days in orbit than most of NASA’s cadre before the show is in the can. Welcome to the inaugural crew of ‘Interns -- Orbital”.

The lights dimmed and some of the rough cuts from two weeks ago came up on the screen showing the most recent interns floating through the living quarters of module two during their test flights for habitability. Billy had provided the voice-over to the visual.

“Three weeks ago, the last group of interns performed habitability testing for a new crew quarter module on the PT-One orbital lab. They spent a total of eight days in orbit, learning to live and perform what should be routine tasks without the aid of gravity. While this was the final challenge for their series, it will be just the beginning for you. In less than three months, you and your teammates will be spending nearly half of your time in orbit learning, working, and improving designs and procedures to help build a thriving orbital economy. You’ll be helping mankind take the next step into a bold, new frontier.” The shot panned from the interior to a wide window showing a full earth in the background. “You will be blazing the trail that others will follow. Welcome to ‘The Interns - Orbital’”.

The logo we had created appeared superimposed in an arc around the globe with Billy’s words.

Everyone in the room clapped enthusiastically as the screen dimmed and the lights came back up.

“Billy, do you have minute?” I asked as we left the newest interns in Tom and William’s capable hands.

“Sure. What’s up?” she asked as she followed Jeryl and me to the elevator.

I waited until we were heading up before speaking. “How are you set for staff for planning the regular series?”

“I’m good. Tom and I split the senior folks and have a rotation planned so everyone will work on both shows, just not at the same time.”

“You don’t foresee any problems with the modified format for next summer?” Jeryl asked.

Billy shrugged as the elevator stopped. “I’m sure we’ll have some snags but what season hasn’t? If you’re talking about the global nature, I think we’ve got that handled in the planning.”

Next year, the interns would have a worldlier view, since we were planning on picking about half of the candidates from the pool of international submissions we had received. I thought it was important to expand the show beyond the U.S. of A.

“Good. How much spare capacity do you think you’ll have for the next couple of months?”

We settled around the table in my office and she looked at us with concern.

“That’s a loaded question,” she said, finally. “Fleshing out the challenges and working the location parts should take about half my time between now and February. Why?”

Jeryl nodded. “We want you to help organize a digital news room.”

“What?”

I jumped in. “DigiNet has the bandwidth into enough households now to provide some content. Rather than just licensing or leveraging re-runs, I want to create a new approach to online journalism.”

“What sort of new approach?”

“I want to sponsor or hire reporters to cover every state legislature and local news in each of the DigiNet major markets.”

She sat back. “That’s going to be pretty expensive.”

Jeryl shook her head. “Not really. All of our publishing will go directly online, not be printed. We want to try and create locally grounded national and international news that focuses on traditional reportage, not infotainment that we seem to get more and more of now. We can home web browsers by market to give them a view of their local weather and news as their home page, with snippets of national and international news as well.”

“The technology is pretty straight forward,” I said. “And we have enough market penetration now to start growing our own news network. Since we’re starting with written media, not video, we can keep costs manageable.”

“What about ads for revenue generation?”

“I want it ad-free. We’ve got Candace and Donna setting up a special trust with some of the generator money that will cover this team’s budget. What we don’t have is someone we trust to help create that team and prove the model. You know the type of news we want to focus on; the facts over the non-news.”

She thought about it for a minute. “What specifically are you asking me to do? I want to be clear before I commit. I’m just a journalism major, for goodness sake.”

I smiled. “You’re not ‘just’ anything. You’re a journalism major who has stepped into a PR role managing some pretty big stories for us. You’re an executive producer on an Emmy winning television show. You’re a self-starter who’s not afraid to go after the real story, not the non-news the mainstream wants to pursue in hopes of better ratings.”

“Specifically,” Jeryl said, “we want you to start by going to do some interviewing of the news staff at the BBC in London. After that, we want you to visit the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post editorial staffs. Then you’ll come back here and come up with a plan for how many reporters we’re going to find to build out a state-by-state all digital news room. We want meaningful stories, not fluff pieces. The goal is to make the fourth estate meaningful in the national discourse again. You’ll need a staff that can go after both parties to try and restore some accountability in government.”

“Will they be independent?” she asked. “I mean, people are going to assume you are putting your message out to counter the mainstream. How do we prove we are reporting the facts, not Paul Taylor’s opinions?”

I nodded. “Fair question. That’s one reason why we’re funding this operation through a trust. No one can fear for their jobs and livelihood if we do something and it gets reported. We aren’t looking to create sacred cows or taboo topics. To that end, though, we can’t have them in our corporate structure. This will be a separate entity that happens to get irrevocable funds from our good fortune.”

“What about editorial policy?” she asked.

“You and the managing editor will have to figure that out but having a written policy is required before funds are granted from the trust. I would ask that it be focused on verifiable facts and not opinions.”

“Who will be the editor? I think nearly everyone in the country leans one way or the other on the political spectrum.”

“We expect you to help establish that hiring criteria. Once you get a model defined for operations, we’ll discuss it further.”

“Okay,” she said. “What if I do all this and decide I’d rather work there than here?”

“Full transfer of salary, time and benefits will be yours for the asking,” Jeryl said. “While we’d love you to stay working closely with us, we both understand if news is more to your liking. I hope you know we would never stand in your way of growing and taking on new challenges.”

Billy nodded again. “Thank you. I don’t know which I find more exciting. I guess I can live with that commitment and decide when the time is right. If I do switch, I don’t think it would be before we get the next season finished.” She flashed us both a quick smile. “I really want the top billing for the Executive Producer next year,” she confided with a grin.

Jeryl snuggled up next to me as we settled into bed.

“So, when can you be home for two weeks solid so I can get my orbital indoctrination done?” she asked.

I was surprised. She had never expressed interest in going to space with me before.

“Why? I thought you wanted to be home for the kids?”

She kissed me gently. “You know Jyl and I have always been a little competitive,” she said.

“Yeah. So?”

“Well, you don’t think I’m going to let her screw in space and brag about doing it first, do you?”

I laughed. Then I saw she was serious.

“I guess we’ll have to check my schedule and tell Tamara to make it happen. Are you sure this is smart? I thought we wanted one of us firmly on ground for the kids’ sake. You do know it’s still dangerous, right?”

She nodded. “Remember what we said on Jay Leno a few weeks ago? How can I ask my sister to do something I’m not willing to do? Besides, don’t you want me to fuck you silly in orbit?”

The thought of her floating naked with me gave her a physical answer. I kissed her passionately as she worked to push my sleeping pants down and take her own ride to the stars, right then.

The next morning had us both looking at the schedule for the next few months.

“Just get it done, now.” Jeryl finally concluded, after discussing options for nearly an hour. “If you do these meetings this week in D.C., everyone else can come out here while I’m in Ireland and wherever else you send me.”

“Okay,” I said. “Tamara, can you make those changes?”

“I’ve got them. None of those are with PITAs. They’ll shift to accommodate you, Paul.”

Jeryl smiled at her use of our acronym for Pain in The Asses.

“Then can you get me through the orbital-indoctrination course that you and Allen did?”

Tamara switched to a different calendar before nodding. “We don’t have any other solo candidates for the class,” she said with a frown. “There are a lot of evolutions that require a partner. I think they like to have two novices working together for those.”

It was my turn to nod. Many of the practices required a buddy.

“Who else might benefit from the training?” I asked.

“What about Alison?” Jeryl asked with a smile.

“Are you telling her?” I asked. “I don’t think I’m brave enough to do it.”

Jeryl’s lips curled into a tight smile. “So, no one has assessed security for the training or in orbit? We’re planning some pretty sensitive research up there, aren’t we?”

I shook my head. “It’s your plan. You definitely get to tell her,” I concluded.

“If you do that, look for the IRS to establish a permanent audit team in your headquarters, Mr. Taylor.”

The Secretary of the Treasury was livid after I had spent fifteen minutes outlining my plan to shift payment for generators to a gold standard.

“As your floating currency loses value, my tax burden will decrease, so do your best,” I said with a smile.

The president seemed to be fighting a smile.

“Nick, why are you opposed to Paul’s plan?”

The Secretary took a moment to collect himself. “If the rest of the world is paying for power in gold, they aren’t going to have to buy our T-Bills unless we raise the yield, which will mean it costs us more to service our debt. This is bad for our economy, Mr. President.”

“Unless, you stop spending more than you make,” I countered. “Where is our peace dividend? We’ve got good job growth, and an expanding tax base, but you keep printing more money and spending dollars you don’t have. The petro-dollar is gone in everything but name, and you thought you could just shift to a fusion-dollar, which I supported to help the world transition away from oil.”

The secretary started to speak but the President raised his hand. “When will you make this change, Paul?”

“All new purchases starting in January. We’ll announce our plans during the market lull in December. Since we’re not publicly traded, we don’t think most of the market will notice in the short-term.”

“Where are you going to process this gold?” The secretary asked.

“Switzerland. We’re going to put drawing rights against a gold reserve and will settle accounts quarterly. I have Lloyds and Barclays over there and they’re already working through the process.”

“So, in less than six months, we can expect some of the market for treasuries to begin drying up?” The President asked.

“At the current yields, yes,” I agreed.

He turned his gaze to his Secretary of the Treasury. “Nick, we need to take this as a starting point and get the budget in order. I want a balanced or surplus budget in two weeks.”

“Sir! There is no way we can trim spending that much. It will never pass Congress before the fall recess.”

“Why? Every American family is expected to balance their household budget. Why can’t we, as a country? Are working parents smarter than Congressmen or public servants?” The President paused, as if testing the appeal of his words in his own mind. “We have a duty to the American people to share the dividends Paul has provided. Power is one, but this opportunity to create a sustainable, responsible budget should not be squandered.”

He paused and looked his Secretary of the Treasury in the eye. “Two weeks, Nick. Get it done.”

“Yes, Mister President,” he said as he rose.

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