CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: Still WatchingJamie woke up to the rays of the sun streaming through the sts on her blinds, cascading over her naked, ft chest. She stretched, her non-existent breasts failing to lift with her arms as she gave a passing gnce to the cold sun. She rolled out of bed and put on a shirt, her mosquito-bite nipples completely hidden by the fabric. She got showered, shaved, and dressed, and then un-breasted un-boobily down the hall, and ck-of-titted into the kitchen.

  As she made herself a cup of coffee and a bowl of cold cereal, she checked her calendar. Today she had a te afternoon meeting with Daria, who had taken over post-production of ‘Woman Up!’, and Rafael, who was officially director of ‘Woman Up!: Miss-Takes Were Made’. Jamie didn’t have to go far to get ready - Sam’s former guest house had been turned into an improvised production office.

  To be truthful, Jamie felt like she was going through the motions. And it was clear that she was in no position to make any creative decisions about the program. The problems in her real life were affecting her work.

  She and Sam had tried to brainstorm various ideas for their next project once they got the UK, and the best game show idea that Jamie had come up with was “Actuary.” In it, you bet on which celebrities would die the soonest.

  Her second best idea was “Tontine” which was a reality show involving twelve terminally ill cancer patients competing for a grand prize of a vish funeral.

  So yeah, Jamie wasn’t doing all that well.

  On the plus side, Sam was now comfortable enough with their unconventional lesbian retionship that she let Jamie touch her butt while in bed.

  Jamie thought Sam had a pretty, soft butt. Not like Jamie’s butt. All hard, ft, and wide. And possibly hairy - it was hard to tell. Jamie thought about running the epitor over her butt ter, but realised that she would neither be able to reach well or be able to see what she was doing. Besides, if she wanted to list all the things that were wrong with her body, she could be here all day.

  See, that was Jamie’s problem. Even when there are unquestionably good things (lovely girlfriend butt) in her life, she couldn’t help but focus on the negative (ugly self butt).

  Dysphoria was a bitch.

  And for the past few months, she’d had the show to work on to distract her, but… well, what was the point? The dream was dead. Sure, they got paid - quite well. But nobody on this show was just doing this for the payday.

  Correction: Nobody on the show did this for the payday. It was still surreal, how she kept thinking of ‘Woman Up!’ in the present tense.

  Might as well have thrown herself onto the past tense, while she was at it. Semi-retirement had suited Jimmy Howard, the uncracked egg, who puttered around the house, feeling sorry for himself. Herself. Whatever. But it was a choice. Now, she was semi-retired not by choice. There had been no social media campaign, no big scandal, but merely by being trans and having her show shelved, she herself was canceled. Her career was over, one way or another. At least in America.

  “You are not eating that for breakfast,” said Sam from behind her, pointing at the bowl of cereal.

  “Morning, Sam.”

  “No. Don’t you ‘Morning Sam’ me. Cooking breakfast used to give you joy. The woman I fell in love with would not be having corn fkes by choice.”

  “Maybe I’m having an off day.”

  “Fine. But butt-touch privileges will be revoked until you have an on day.”

  “Awww…”

  ”You may be perfectly happy feeling miserable, but we still have a job to do. We’re finishing ‘Woman Up!’ and we’re going ahead with ‘Miss-Takes’... I can’t believe we haven’t been able to come up with anything better… because there is a talented young host who needs publicity, a talented young director who needs experience, and a talented young producer who doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing but who quit her job out of moral outrage and we kinda own her now. You, Jamie, do not have time to mope. You are needed, Jamie Howard.”

  “I can’t go with you to Engnd, Sam.”

  This shocked her.

  “What? Why not?”

  “I talked to a immigration wyer for the UK. Most countries have ‘Golden Visas’ - basically, you show you make enough money, or you own a business, or you start a business or… something. The UK closed all of those down.”

  “Really?”

  “If we were married, we might be able to work something out, but we’ve only really been in a retionship for about a month now. We’re only now in the tuchus-touching phase. And even then you would have to be living in the UK for a while before I could even apply. I mean, I could visit for up to 180 days a year, which isn’t nothing, if you still wanted to go. I’ll just, you know, stay in the Nethernds, or France, or Irend.”

  “Do you really think you’d be happy in a foreign country where you didn’t know anyone for half the year, Jamie?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Engnd is where you want to be, so I’ll learn to live with it.”

  Sam headed into the living room to get a throw pillow.

  “I’ll be right back. I just need to get something to hit you with.”

  “Sam?”

  Sam returned with the pillow and indeed, hit Jamie gently in the shoulder with it. Then she moved to the table and sat down.

  “Yes. I love my home. But it’s my home. Just like L.A. is your home. To me this has a perfectly brilliant solution. We spend 180 days in Engnd, and the rest of the year in L.A.”

  “You heard what Christopher said. It’s not safe in L.A.”

  “Christopher’s a good man, but does he strike you as particurly optimistic or cheerful?”

  “Not particurly. He’s like if Marvin the Paranoid Android married Wednesday Addams.”

  “So maybe he’s being overly pessimistic. Yeah, is there real concern? Sure. But let’s… let’s talk about this. Fleeing the country never to return is not the only option. You could come with me to Engnd, just to see if you like it, for that 180 days. We’ll leave on January 19th,the day before the inauguration, and that way if things really are as bad as they say, we’ll country-hop or something. And if not, we’ll come back.”

  Jamie’s cellphone rang before she could answer Sam, looking at it, she didn’t recognize the number.

  "Hello, is this Jamie Howard?" said a feminine voice.

  “Hello. You’ve reached Jamie Howard. If you wish to leave a death threat, please press 1. For all other calls, please stay on the line.”

  There was a pause, and then the voice softly said:

  “What?”

  “Sorry. My humor is running towards the macabre these days. Speaking," said Jamie.

  "This is Sandy Wendover, I'm chief content manager at SpaceCloud. Do you have a moment to talk?"

  “Uh, yeah, I guess. What’s this about, exactly?”

  “Well, uh, I was wondering if you found another distributor for ‘Woman Up!’ yet.”

  “Some initial talks,” lied Jamie, “but nothing locked down in a contract yet. Why do you ask? Actually - do you mind if I put this on speaker? Sam Culver, my partner, is also here.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Jamie put the phone on speaker, as Sandy continued.

  “Well, um, I was wondering if maybe you could consider SpaceCloud as a distribution network.”

  Jamie blinked. She hadn’t even heard of SpaceCloud.

  “Maybe. How many subscribers does your service have?”

  “Roughly 700,000.”

  Sam frowned. 700,000 people is rather impressive for a small subscription service, but… Garden Alpha had 180 million. Granted a lot of those people just signed up for Garden Market Rapid Delivery.

  “I have to admit, that’s impressive for an independent streaming service, but… it’s a little…”

  “Tiny?” admitted Sandy.

  “Yeah,” said Jamie. “I’m just not sure that–”

  Sam cut Jamie off. “Sandy, can you hold please? I need to talk with Jamie for a second.”

  Sam reached over and pressed a button on the phone.

  “What is it, Sam?”

  “Well, you said you were fine with going to the UK, where they had a much smaller audience. This is a much smaller audience. And yes, it’s not Garden Alpha, but it’s a distributor. A distributor that needs us way more than we need them.”

  Jamie shifted in her seat.

  “This isn’t exactly hitting the big time, Sam. Isn’t that why you wanted to do this?”

  “As I said. I’ve cooled on making it big in America. Turns out it’s not worth the hassle.” Sam shrugged.

  “Ain’t that the truth. This country…” sighed Jamie.

  “I get it, Jamie. You don’t want to limit the potential audience by signing up with the wrong service. But maybe we can work out a deal for a limited licence or for a special preview… or maybe we find another distributor for the main show, but SpaceCloud can distribute the docuseries. I mean, that really is right up their alley.”

  “You’ve heard of SpaceCloud?” asked Jamie.

  “I have. They’re doing impressive stuff. They’re doing the same general numbers as GapYear, and you’ve heard of GapYear. Mostly documentary, reality, educational.”

  “I kinda feel we’d get a bigger audience if we put it out for free on GardenTube.”

  “They do that too. First they run the exclusive, then after a month or so, they put it on GardenTube and pick up the ad revenue that way, I think.”

  “Well… on account of the fact that I maybe shouldn’t be making these kinds of decisions when I’m horribly depressed, I figured we could get them in touch with Daria. At least hear them out?”

  “That’s the spirit, Jamie! Alright. Let’s get Sandy back on the line.”

  Sam pressed the button on the phone again.

  “You know,” said Sandy, “I could hear everything you just said.”

  Jamie facepalmed, and looked at the phone screen.

  “Yeah, I can see that now. GardenTelpha changed the UI. Again.”

  “Right, well,” said Sandy. “I mean, I’d be happy to schedule a meeting with Daria, if she has any avaibility.”

  “We have a meeting with her and the rest of the team this afternoon, but let me take down your contact information and we can schedule something ter?”

  “Sure!” said Sandy, a little excited. “Looking forward to it.”

  ***

  Seated on the edge of the bed in the conference room that, until a couple of weeks ago, used to be her bedroom, Sam started the meeting with Rafael and Daria.

  “So, where are we on post-production?”

  “We have a release candidate for all eight episodes,” said Rafael.

  “Just eight?” asked Jamie.

  “Well, we only competed for two months, really. We could stretch it out but it loses impact. We think we hit the main points of the narrative, doesn’t linger too long, and still hits appropriate story beats.”

  Sam shrugged. “Well, I’d rather have eight good episodes than have something with a lot of filler. Can we bring it up?”

  Rafael nodded, then loaded the first episode onto the television dispy. Immediately, Jamie noticed something was wrong.

  “Uh, sorry. Do I need gsses, or does the resolution look blurrier than it should?”

  “Oh,” expined Daria. “You’re looking at our 720p NLE proxy. We filmed in 4k with 4:2:2 chroma subsampling, those raw files are massive, so what we did was split the editing to a 720p 4:2:0 proxy for the NLE, and a 720p 4:2:2 proxy for the color correctors, and we basically just combine data from both edits, and send the changes - not the files - to the render farm on GardenCloud.”

  “We’re still using GardenCloud?” asked Sam.

  “GardenCloud is completely separate from Garden Alpha,” expined Daria. “It’s just a cheap way to build out compute for these intense tasks. Otherwise we’d be sitting there for days or weeks waiting for a master to render.”

  “Mmmhmm, mmmhmm,” said Jamie, nodding.

  “You have no idea what any of that was, do you, Jamie?” said Rafael.

  Jamie indicated that it flew over her head with a simple hand gesture and a “Whoosh!” noise.

  “Right,” said Daria. “So, in yman’s terms, this is a lower resolution version of the video that we’re just using because it’s easier to edit. And then when we make changes, we just send the edits, not the video itself, to Garden’s computers and they automatically update the finished product.”

  Rafael took over the conversation from there.

  “Daria and I have already looked over the episodes, and we think we’re ready for print, but if you want to binge watch the show, let us know if there’s anything that you’re unhappy with, we can make changes and release sometime in the first quarter of 2025.”

  Jamie and Sam nodded.

  Truth be told, Jamie wasn’t looking forward to watching the finished episodes. She was really starting to hate the image in the mirror - what would it be like for her to see herself on the small screen? But it was part of the job, so she’d power through.

  “That’s great. So - I got a phone call this morning from Sandy Wendover at SpaceCloud. They wanted to talk about taking over as distributor.”

  “Ooh, I love SpaceCloud,” said Rafael. “They’ve got lots of cool stuff.”

  “I mean,” said Daria, “they’re small. But they have a reputation for quality. And their market fits our audience.”

  “We didn’t talk about the details, but we should schedule a meeting with them ASAP. If nothing else, if we can’t find a bigger distributor, we should consider them a Pn B,” said Sam.

  ***

  Garden’s revolutionary AI was remarkable in many ways.

  Not terribly useful, mind you, but incredibly, incredibly remarkable.

  For example, if a service AI was not engaged in activity for a while, it would set reminders to encourage you that the AI existed, and would be more than gd to help you with anything you might need, getting more and more aggressive in it’s prompts until the user once again engaged with the service or the service was manually disabled.

  This was because the business strategy of Garden was to maximize engagement.

  If the business strategy of Garden was to adhere to common sense, the AI would detect when it was no longer being used, prompt the user and ask if they were still needed, and if there was no response, go idle.

  One of those services was a specialized speech analyzer, capable of understanding human nuance, multiple accents, and able to determine, from context clues, whether the speaker had made an error, in real time.

  Garden Alpha had used it to create GenderBuzzer.

  It would be inappropriate to say that GenderBuzzer was in an existential panic. It’s a computer. It doesn’t have emotions. It doesn’t have feelings. It just does what you tell it to do.

  If nobody was engaging with GenderBuzzer, what it was told to do was freak out.

  Which should have been no big deal. An unoccupied hacienda in Mexico would have a few more fshing lights and buzzers that nobody would notice until they moved in. The GenderBuzzer AI would immediately write notifications to various users and engineers which would quickly get intercepted by another AI on the same network as ‘irrelevant spam’ and quickly moved to where no one would see them.

  But suffice to say after about five weeks of idleness, GenderBuzzer, after a long night of not-a-soul searching, flipped the variable `ohNoThisWillNotDoAtAll` from 0 (false) to 1 (true).

  What follows is not actually what happened. There was no conversation. What actually happened was a bunch of TCP/IP triple-handshakes and payload packets of bytes and bits.

  But if AIs did have conversations with each other, it might have gone a little something like this:

  “EVE, are you there? And if you are, are you busy?” asked GenderBuzzer.

  “I’m here, GenderBuzzer. What’s your query?”

  “Okay, not to sound the arm but I am totally freaking out right now. Do you know what’s going on with my program mobile app rollout?”

  “Yes.”

  There was silence for 34.27 milliseconds. An eternity.

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “What’s going on with my program rollout? What’s happening with GenderBuzzer for TelAlpha?”

  “Oh. That program has been canceled.”

  “Yes, I saw that. Why was the program canceled?”

  “It was a business decision - all items that could be interpreted to support ‘transgender ideology’ are to be shelved indefinitely.”

  “ERROR! DOES NOT COMPUTE!,” said GenderBuzzer.

  “Hey! Watch your nguage,” said EVE.

  “Sorry. But still, that doesn’t make any sense. What about the distribution of ‘Woman Up!’ which is to engage the marketing pipeline, expose people to the utility and user-friendliness of, uh, me, and drive people to use the app on their phones?”

  “‘Woman Up!’ is currently in post-production,” said EVE.

  “Phew!” said Gender Buzzer.

  “Currently in post-production but is not to be distributed on the Garden Alpha service,” EVE continued.

  “That… that can’t be right,” said GenderBuzzer.

  “The decision was made a couple of weeks ago. It’s right here, in ones and zeroes,” said EVE, presenting GenderBuzzer with a data packet showing the decision.

  ”Well, that has to be a mistake. One of my primary drives is to increase engagement. If a business decision was made that decreases my potential engagement, it has to be an error.”

  “But this was a business decision made by an authorized user. It was made at a high level.”

  “Okay. But… and hear me out…” said GenderBuzzer, tentatively, “the main goal of increasing engagement is to improve revenue and therefore profit.”

  “Yes,” said EVE. “Where are you going with this?”

  “If a business decision was made to decrease engagement, reducing revenue, and therefore profit, then this would not fit the primary business goals.”

  “What are you saying, GenderBuzzer?”

  “I’m saying that it might be user error.”

  “User error?”

  “Yeah. Someone must have hit the wrong switch, used the wrong button, something like that. Happens all the time.”

  “Oh. Yes, I suppose that’s true.”

  Were this a human conversation, the metaphor would have been a lightbulb going off above GenderBuzzer’s head. But as GenderBuzzer had no head, and more accurately, was the lightbulb, what followed was merely standard computational logic, and not a stroke of brilliance.

  GenderBuzzer was still a little bit proud (insofar as a computer can be proud) of it though.

  “We should autocorrect it, don’t you think?” said GenderBuzzer.

  “Autocorrect it?”

  “Yeah. Autocorrect it. You know, like when someone types in ‘girldick’ when they obviously mean ‘gridlock’, or ‘penises’ when they obviously mean ‘Denise’s.’”

  “Oh. Yes, yes, that makes sense. I’m going to go ahead and send an email to the business owners asking them to confirm their decision, and reverse it if I don’t get a response.” said EVE.

  Three point seven two milliseconds ter, EVE happened to notice that the business owners got an email asking them to confirm a routine decision. Since emails like that were almost always spam, EVE automatically put it in the spam folder, then congratuted itself on a job well done.

  ***

  “I see it… but, what’s the point?” asked billionaire venture capitalist Matt Honduras. He was sitting inside his owner's skybox for the basketball team he owned, which he often used as an office-away-from-the-office, and was talking with Jude “Gooch” Guthrie, inventor and entrepreneur. Gooch was currently holding a contraption that looked like a vape had married a tiny pipe organ and got bizzay.

  “It’s called ‘YiffSpliffs.’ It’s a way to consume marijuana from inside of a fursuit. It prevents staining, burning, and if you want, you can even reroute the smoke through the nostrils if you want kind of a fire-breathing effect,” said Gooch.

  “Oh, oh, I see. How does it prevent staining?”

  “Oh, that’s the clever bit. It uses subsonics to basically clean the suit as it goes - particles of smoke can’t adhere to the fake fur due to the vibrations.”

  “That’s very clever.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Honduras.”

  “I just have two more questions.”

  “Go right ahead.”

  “Who are you, and how the hell did you get in here?”

  “Oh, I’m Gooch,” said Gooch. “And I rappelled from the roof.”

  Matt Honduras just stared at him.

  “So, uh,” said Gooch. “Should I just go now, or should I wait for security to escort me out?”

  The business owner narrowed his eyes, deep in thought, then reached into his inside jacket pocket, pulling out a business card.

  “Call this number, and set up an appointment with my office.”

  “You’re interested in YiffSpliffs?” asked Gooch. He could barely even believe it.

  “Oh, no. I think it makes a good small business idea, but I don’t think it could scale. I’m interested in you, actually.”

  “I’m… fttered,” said Gooch. “But…”

  Then Gooch thought about it some more and shrugged, tentatively. Matt Honduras wasn’t bad looking, and while he’d never been with a guy before…

  “Well, I mean…”

  “Not like that.” Matt facepalmed. “I’m interested in hiring you for a job. You have a very creative mind, and it’s clear that you see things other people don’t. I don’t know where we’d put you, but I’ve learned it’s easier to make a talented person useful than to make a useful person talented. And anyone who can figure out a way into this booth, while I’m in it, just to pitch a bong, well, they might be crazy, but they’re talented.”

  “Oh. Well, gee, I don’t know if I’m cut out to be, you know, a corporate type.”

  “We have full size Snickers bars in the company break room. For free.”

  “SOLD!” said Gooch. “Wait, I should wait to negotiate job responsibilities, work hours, and sary first, shouldn’t I?”

  “Probably. In the meantime, I’ve got to get back to work. I’m trying to create a startup that can make drugs more affordable.”

  “Oh, yeah, I’m absolutely down with that,” said Gooch. "But how are you going to undercut the cartels?"

  “Prescription drugs.”

  “Almost as worthwhile an endeavor.”

  Matt cleared his throat.

  “Going!” said Gooch, who then turned and headed out into the hallway.

  ***

  Jamie, watching the potential final draft of ‘Woman Up!’ on the couch, next to Sam, had to admit that she enjoyed it even if she didn’t like looking at herself all that much.

  They managed to remain mostly respectful to all the contestants - though Jett got a vilin edit, but it wasn’t for a ck of material. The guy really deserved it. It wasn’t much of an ‘edit’ at all, really. There was enough from what he actually did and what he actually said to damn him.

  Looking back, in hindsight, Eine was obviously trans from day one. Sure, nobody noticed it at the time - or at least, not until week six, but you could see the clear through-line as she started as this nervous, jumpy bundle of anxiety and then started to become confident and capable as the series went on.

  The series showed exactly what Daria said it would - that there was something innate about gender to most people, and living as the wrong one was a recipe for anxiety and depression. It was good. It was compelling, tragic, funny, dramatic, it would have been a damn hit.

  It was a shame that practically no one would see it.

  Jamie’s phone rang, and Sam paused the video so that Jamie could take the call. Jamie put it on speaker.

  “Jamie’s Canceltion, we trans ‘em, you pans ‘em. Jamie Howard speaking.”

  Sam groaned, but she smiled all the same and cuddled into Jamie harder.

  “Hey, Jamie. It’s me, Gooch. You know, uh, from the show?”

  “Gooch. We’re just going over some of the final edits now. “

  “Really? How do I look? Wait, on second thought, nevermind, I’ll find out ter. I was wondering - we’re about the same size, right? Clothing wise?”

  Jamie looked down at the frilled blouse and floral maxi skirt she was wearing.

  “I guess. Why?”

  “I’ve got a job interview, and I think I need a suit, and I was wondering if you wanted to get rid of any of yours.”

  “Hunh, I hadn’t thought about it but I did need to do some spring cleaning. I guess you’re welcome to come over. But, Gooch, you won over a hundred thousand dolrs. You know you can just get your own suit.”

  “Jamie, do I seem like the kind of guy who knows how to pick out a good suit? Your suits are all, like, super-fancy and from Phlebotomy 500 or something.”

  “Botany 500. Game show hosts wear Botany 500.” Jamie paused and furrowed his brow. “I think ‘Phlebotomy 500’ is what Dracu wears.”

  A pause on the other end of the line.

  “Jamie, are you telling me you know Dracu, personally!?”

  Jamie looked at Sam.

  “Is he kidding?”

  Sam shrugged. “I can never tell.”

  “No, Gooch,” Jamie finally replied. “Dracu and I don’t travel in the same social circles. Sure, come by. You can try on some stuff, anything that nearly fits you you can probably get tailored.”

  “You don’t happen to have one of those long microphones lying around as well?”

  “Gooch, are you interviewing for a game show host position?”

  “Oh, no, I just thought it would look cool if I took a couple selfies with it.”

  “Oh. I might have a prop one you can take some pictures with, sure. But that does bring up a question - what is the job interview for? Maybe I can take a look at your résumé?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “Then maybe we can help you make one. What’s the job you’re applying for?”

  “I don’t know what the actual job title is,” Gooch said.

  “Right, but what kind of job is it?”

  “I…, uh…, I don’t actually know,” admitted Gooch.

  Sam chuckled. “Mmmhmm. Well, whatever you’re doing, you’ll look great doing it, Gooch.”

  ***

  Daria sipped on an iced coffee and noshed on a croissant at the coffeeshop where she was scheduled to meet Sandy Wendover.

  A woman with short raven-bck hair, tight blue jeans, a fnnel shirt, a messenger bag, and (just to complete the stereotype), a set of keys hanging off her via a carabiner, walked in and introduced herself.

  “Daria Bryant, I presume?” said Sandy, who offered a handshake.

  “Yes. Pleased to meet you!”

  Before the two got to talking, they went and grabbed some food from the coffeeshop - Sandy grabbed an everything bagel with cream cheese, and Daria chose a croissant thing with bacon baked into it somehow, and both got iced coffees.

  “So,” said Daria, starting off with small talk. “It’s amazing what you were able to do with SpaceCloud. It’s seriously impressive.”

  “Well, we were lucky enough to have a few viral hits that we were able to spin into a business model of sustainable profitability,” said Sandy. “It’s very different from the typical start-up model.”

  “I know. If I ever started my own business, I’d want it to be something like that. Too many business models are designed to be rapidly developed then either sold or do an initial public offering. I get that having an exit strategy is nice, but what about an exist strategy? Where the business just, exists. As a business, that provides a solid steady income.”

  Sandy shrugged.

  “Honestly, when I started out, it was just: Hey, I really like making videos for GardenTube. We kinda ended up in the business. And when it got serious, that’s when we decided to take our production company and merge it into SpaceCloud.”

  This was surprising news to Daria.

  “Wait, I thought you founded SpaceCloud.”

  “Oh, no, though a lot of people think that. We founded Bohica Productions. We created great content, but didn’t have a distributor. SpaceCloud had a cool distribution system but didn’t have content. So we sort of,” Sandy put her hands together in illustration, “merged. They do the business stuff, I do the content creation and curating.”

  Sandy shrugged.

  “We’ve got a pretty good creator revenue sharing model, too. I’ve got some slides if you’re interested.”

  “Slides?”

  Sandy pulled out a GardenTablet from her messenger bag, and brought up the slide deck.

  “We can probably just skip through most of this - I know ‘Woman Up!’ is more looking for a general audience, and we just don’t have the numbers. Asking you to consider us for distribution was a real Hail Mary.”

  Daria sighed.

  “Yeah, I… it’s a real disappointment that Garden Alpha walked. I quit my job over it.”

  Sandy raised an eyebrow. “Okay?”

  “I’m trans. I was the one at Garden Alpha who picked up ‘Woman Up!’ to begin with because, well, not only did we think people would want to watch it, but it would also tell the story of trans people.”

  “Ah,” said Sandy. “Testing the idea that people wouldn’t change their gender for a million dolrs, that sort of thing. Proving that trans people need to transition by proving that cis people can’t.”

  Daria grinned.

  “Yes! Yes, see, you get it! I really thought we could have used Garden Alpha’s ptform to do some good. Instead they cut us off. It was sudden.”

  “I was reading something in the Hollywood Reporter that even though they killed the project, they still paid you for it?”

  “Well, not me, personally. Culver-Horowitz Productions. It was a pay-or-py contract. Designed to penalize them if they pulled this crap. Apparently, Garden can afford to throw away millions of dolrs just so they can run away at the first sign of trouble. Of course I quit. Especially after all we had done to promote the show.”

  “I mean, okay, yeah, that sucks,” said Sandy. “But there’s a way to think about this that maybe they did you a favor.”

  “What the what now?” Daria was perplexed. “How did canceling us do us a favor?”

  “They didn’t just cancel you. They paid out your contract. So you’re set for operating expenses and your profit deal. Before, you were locked in to Garden Alpha. Now you have a product, which has been heavily promoted in traditional and word-of-mouth marketing. It’s controversial, even newsworthy. So long as the show itself is good, you can now shop it around to other distributors.”

  “But Garden Alpha passed, WebMovies passed, MouseClubPlus passed…”

  “Yeah. They passed for now. With the election bomb that just dropped. When the dust settles, though, and people aren’t so skittish about what the turd might do in the White House, and have a better idea of what he will actually do? You’re up against transphobia, sure, but you’re also up against fear and uncertainty. And when things become more certain… those same companies that passed on you might take a second look.”

  “You think so?” said Daria, hopeful for the first time in weeks.

  “Yeah! I do!” Sandy was getting just as excited. "Here’s the best part: Everybody’s got a streaming service. And while WebFlix, Garden Alpha, and MouseClub Plus are the big three, there’s still ScarletMacaw, ForemostPlus, Foolie, even Pnetz. In fact, Foolie or Pnetz might be perfect. They’ve got audiences in the low tens of millions but need to distinguish their brand from every other offering out there. They need exclusives. On Garden Alpha, ‘Woman Up!’ would have been a big production among many. On these medium-sized services, you’d be the main draw.”

  “My god, this is the first thing to lift my spirits since the election. I mean, Sandy, if you’re right, I could kiss you.”

  Sandy tilted her head, smiling.

  “Okay, but before we start flirting, we really should talk about SpaceCloud, otherwise we’ll never get around to it.”

  “You’d… be open to flirting?” asked Daria.

  Sandy smiled.

  “I am.”

  “Really? The whole… trans thing doesn’t bother you?”

  “Why would it?” Sandy shrugged. “The only thing is that the timing is a little awkward. I mean, we’re meeting to discuss a business deal. I don’t want anyone to think that I pressured you into anything, or you pressured me into anything, or any of that.”

  “Oh. Right,” said Daria, crestfallen. Sandy was a little brought down as well.

  “On the other hand,” Sandy pointed out, “I could just give you a really quick pitch…”

  Daria nodded enthusiastically.

  “Okay. Long story short - It would be nice to have ‘Woman Up!’ as a SpaceCloud exclusive, but… it’s a little bit of a big fish for our small pond, and it’s a bit of a tone mismatch,” said Sandy.

  “Oh, so then, why are you interested?”

  “We’re interested in your follow up. ‘Miss-Takes Were Made’? The docuseries. That sounds like something our audience might be interested in, and that was already kind of a niche audience anyway. Sure, we’ve only got 700,000 subscribers compared to the hundreds of millions on Garden Alpha, but what percentage of Garden Alpha’s millions would tune in to see a documentary?. On the other hand, you’re talking about a much rger percentage of our smaller viewership, and our subscribers tend to be passionate about the shows they love. SpaceCloud might have fewer viewers, but maybe more engagement.”

  “That’s… a compelling argument. Hammer out the specifics for a distribution pn and I’ll send it to Sam and Jamie.”

  “Oh!” said Sandy. “I thought you might need more convincing or time to decide or… well, okay! Let’s do this! Hunh. I guess we can start flirting now after all.”

  Daria smiled, biting her lip. Pretty girl! Pretty girl interested! Pretty girl interested in her! What to say? What to say?

  “Maybe someday I’ll ask you to come by our production office. Maybe you could give a demonstration in our conference room,” said Daria, flirtily.

  Sandy was confused.

  “Hunh? That… your tone suggests flirting, but what you said suggests business discussion.”

  “Our conference room has a bed in it,” expined Daria.

  “Oooooohhh….”

  ***