“They’re firing me?” Guduza asked, incredulously.
"They. Are. Firing. Me?!" he repeated. He sometimes had learned to ham up his facial expressions for non-humans who could not read subtlety and had mostly stereotypical human reactions to go from. This time his shock and befuddlement and all-around taken-abackitude was genuinely amplified. If he’d had a knob on his body rated for general audiences it would have been dialed to max output.
“No one gets fired, or sacked or de-provisioned, Abe. This is not the dark ages. The management team simply feels like the show needs a fresh perspective. As you know they decided last season to introduce new creative team members. And while we think they’re working well, a lot of them find that they’re not working well with the senior script-writer.”
“This is horse shit, Kapok, this is.. targ shit. It’s all kindsa shit. You know what it is? It’s a mutiny. That’s what it is. You and I MADE this show, and you know it. Great Bird, I need a drink.”
The Vulcan producer looked placidly at him while the silence builds before finally replying. “If memory serves, the original pilot was written by..”
Guduza waved him off. “It tanked with audiences. It only got high marks with a Benzite test crowd. If I hadn’t done the rewrite, and if you hadn’t got them to give us one more chance, that’s where it would be now, the number one fungal-based tragi-venture on wherever the Benzites live.”
Kapok raised an eyebrow, “I think they live on Benzine.”
It took Guduza off his track, “Really? No shit. I always thought that they got called that because of the.. you know.” He made a mouth-breather-thingy gesture.
Kapok nodded in his Vulcan severity. “No shit.”
They stared at each other for awhile. Seconds turned to minutes. It was Kapok that cracked a smile first.
“You son of a bitch!” Guduza said, laughing a little.
Kapok opened a drawer and pulled out a bottle of something green, pouring them both into force-field holo cups that would dissipate the instant they were dry. The wonders of living in the UFP. He looked sheepish, “It is Benzar.”
Guduza downed his drink, feeling the warmth of the unknown alcohol and possibly wormwood extract enter his system and do the damage. “But.. still. Here we are. Jetsam. What’s going to happen to us, my friend?”
Kapok looked meditatively at a poster for the original season of “Where’s My Mip-Blorp?!” It had lasted 7 glorious seasons, and when it seemed time for the holo-comedy to come to a natural end, it had been Guduza who came up with the idea to reintroduce the galaxy’s favorite sentient fungal family in the sequal, “That’s My Mip-Blorp!”, and five years later, here they were.
Awards lined the wall. There was even a rumor the show was so funny that the humor had infected a Borg Cube heading towards the Gamma Quadrant to destroy it, and disabled them permanently. They died laughing. It probably wasn’t true. Probably.
Kapok explained finally, “They’re taking it back to the original idea. The drama. It will be a.. what did the Andorian from the studio call it? A reboot. I do not understand the reference to boots.”
“Probably a shoe thing. She’s a perv. I heard rumors.” Guduza said, brow furrowed. “That’s a terrible idea. It didn’t work the first time, and it won’t work now. We had a hard enough time selling whats his name’s idea for a show about a bifurcated mushroom the first around. If it hadn’t been for Loose Eel Sphere giving us time credits in the studio for that second attempt, it would have tanked. Well, good luck to them, anyway. They’ll need it. I can see why they didn’t want me around, sure. But what about you? I mean, you being a Vulcan and all I figured they’d at least ask you to stay.”
Kapok nodded, “They did. I found it offensive that they assumed I would prefer drama to comedy. It was very racist. I told them to give kisses to my glutteal region. I have been given notice to vacate. I have decided to use the time allotted to get trashed.”
And he did.
Firmly but gently. Real pros. When security ejected Kapok and Abe Guduza from Capybara Studios, they looked back long enough to see the changing holo adverts next to the main entrance passing through next season’s offering. They’d already started promos for “My Fruiting Body.” They hadn’t even waited for the convention season to announce it.
The automated aircar pulled up. “please state your destination.”
Kapok was well and truly intoxicated and having control on his emotions compromised. “Anywhere but home. I can’t face T’sting. Not like this. I am going to need twelve hours and twenty seven minutes to recover. Unless you can procure for me red-stripers.”
Guduza had already puked in the gutter outside the studio. The car did a scan of both of them and offered species-specific drunkenness cures for each. Those things took at least thirty earth minutes to work. The Vulcan version of the hypo did indeed have red stripes.
“please state your destination.”
“Hell with it. Space.”
“be more precise, please.”
“Uh. Howsabout Mayweather Terminal?” Guduza said, just starting to come up with an idea. It was the least used passenger port in the solar system. But the food was real, they handled obscure destinations pretty well, and it had a certain “je ne sais quois,” as one might say in their best English accent.
Kapok didn’t look like he cared. On the way he asked, “Who was Mayweather? I never thought about it ”
“Fuck if I know. Nobody knows.”
They worked on their idea on the way to the station. This was not a time to be sober, yet.
They’d forgotten their ID’s and passports and non-Federation currency wallets but eventually, with some delays, they were on a Carnivale Celestial bound for Deep Space Nine in the Bajoran system, buffet and drinks included.
“Kapok my friend. We are going to have ourselves some amazing times.”
“Indeed.”
"They. Are. Firing. Me?!" he repeated. He sometimes had learned to ham up his facial expressions for non-humans who could not read subtlety and had mostly stereotypical human reactions to go from. This time his shock and befuddlement and all-around taken-abackitude was genuinely amplified. If he’d had a knob on his body rated for general audiences it would have been dialed to max output.
“No one gets fired, or sacked or de-provisioned, Abe. This is not the dark ages. The management team simply feels like the show needs a fresh perspective. As you know they decided last season to introduce new creative team members. And while we think they’re working well, a lot of them find that they’re not working well with the senior script-writer.”
“This is horse shit, Kapok, this is.. targ shit. It’s all kindsa shit. You know what it is? It’s a mutiny. That’s what it is. You and I MADE this show, and you know it. Great Bird, I need a drink.”
The Vulcan producer looked placidly at him while the silence builds before finally replying. “If memory serves, the original pilot was written by..”
Guduza waved him off. “It tanked with audiences. It only got high marks with a Benzite test crowd. If I hadn’t done the rewrite, and if you hadn’t got them to give us one more chance, that’s where it would be now, the number one fungal-based tragi-venture on wherever the Benzites live.”
Kapok raised an eyebrow, “I think they live on Benzine.”
It took Guduza off his track, “Really? No shit. I always thought that they got called that because of the.. you know.” He made a mouth-breather-thingy gesture.
Kapok nodded in his Vulcan severity. “No shit.”
They stared at each other for awhile. Seconds turned to minutes. It was Kapok that cracked a smile first.
“You son of a bitch!” Guduza said, laughing a little.
Kapok opened a drawer and pulled out a bottle of something green, pouring them both into force-field holo cups that would dissipate the instant they were dry. The wonders of living in the UFP. He looked sheepish, “It is Benzar.”
Guduza downed his drink, feeling the warmth of the unknown alcohol and possibly wormwood extract enter his system and do the damage. “But.. still. Here we are. Jetsam. What’s going to happen to us, my friend?”
Kapok looked meditatively at a poster for the original season of “Where’s My Mip-Blorp?!” It had lasted 7 glorious seasons, and when it seemed time for the holo-comedy to come to a natural end, it had been Guduza who came up with the idea to reintroduce the galaxy’s favorite sentient fungal family in the sequal, “That’s My Mip-Blorp!”, and five years later, here they were.
Awards lined the wall. There was even a rumor the show was so funny that the humor had infected a Borg Cube heading towards the Gamma Quadrant to destroy it, and disabled them permanently. They died laughing. It probably wasn’t true. Probably.
Kapok explained finally, “They’re taking it back to the original idea. The drama. It will be a.. what did the Andorian from the studio call it? A reboot. I do not understand the reference to boots.”
“Probably a shoe thing. She’s a perv. I heard rumors.” Guduza said, brow furrowed. “That’s a terrible idea. It didn’t work the first time, and it won’t work now. We had a hard enough time selling whats his name’s idea for a show about a bifurcated mushroom the first around. If it hadn’t been for Loose Eel Sphere giving us time credits in the studio for that second attempt, it would have tanked. Well, good luck to them, anyway. They’ll need it. I can see why they didn’t want me around, sure. But what about you? I mean, you being a Vulcan and all I figured they’d at least ask you to stay.”
Kapok nodded, “They did. I found it offensive that they assumed I would prefer drama to comedy. It was very racist. I told them to give kisses to my glutteal region. I have been given notice to vacate. I have decided to use the time allotted to get trashed.”
And he did.
Firmly but gently. Real pros. When security ejected Kapok and Abe Guduza from Capybara Studios, they looked back long enough to see the changing holo adverts next to the main entrance passing through next season’s offering. They’d already started promos for “My Fruiting Body.” They hadn’t even waited for the convention season to announce it.
The automated aircar pulled up. “please state your destination.”
Kapok was well and truly intoxicated and having control on his emotions compromised. “Anywhere but home. I can’t face T’sting. Not like this. I am going to need twelve hours and twenty seven minutes to recover. Unless you can procure for me red-stripers.”
Guduza had already puked in the gutter outside the studio. The car did a scan of both of them and offered species-specific drunkenness cures for each. Those things took at least thirty earth minutes to work. The Vulcan version of the hypo did indeed have red stripes.
“please state your destination.”
“Hell with it. Space.”
“be more precise, please.”
“Uh. Howsabout Mayweather Terminal?” Guduza said, just starting to come up with an idea. It was the least used passenger port in the solar system. But the food was real, they handled obscure destinations pretty well, and it had a certain “je ne sais quois,” as one might say in their best English accent.
Kapok didn’t look like he cared. On the way he asked, “Who was Mayweather? I never thought about it ”
“Fuck if I know. Nobody knows.”
They worked on their idea on the way to the station. This was not a time to be sober, yet.
They’d forgotten their ID’s and passports and non-Federation currency wallets but eventually, with some delays, they were on a Carnivale Celestial bound for Deep Space Nine in the Bajoran system, buffet and drinks included.
“Kapok my friend. We are going to have ourselves some amazing times.”
“Indeed.”
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