S3, E2 | Opening the Door to a Bidding war

\ Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 /
\ 10:24 pm est. - 7:24 pm pst. /

“Did you come here looking for sympathy?” Robin wonders from her corner of the room, watching her ex husband wipe the blood from his lip and steady himself properly. “No” Ross responds with simplicity, kept from offering anything more by his ex wife’s rigid and callous interjection. “Then what is it that you came here for?” the company’s owner inquires, hands placed on her hips as she stands beside Bruce, “forgiveness? Revenge? A check for the chemo?”

“No” Ross replies, again composed and well-collected, hands pressed against the top of Vickers’ desk to steady himself. “Then why are you here?” Robin cuts back with haste, a few steps taken closer to the workstation that her ex husband collects himself at, her every word holding malice and vigour, “I told you I never wanted to see you in this building the moment the ink dried on our deal. I don’t care if you’re a few months away from playing patty cake with Satan, why are you here?”

With his head hung and face held toward the desktop, Ross collects his breath for a few moments as the strength in his knees begins to waver, desperately trying to force him back into the chair he’d fought so hard to escape the grasp of. “Well for one, I still own the land this tower is built on- which makes it mine” the cancer-ridden founder retorts, finally giving into the call of the seat that sits behind him, lowering himself back into the soft restraint of the rolling throne.

“And secondly, I didn’t come here to throw jabs at you” Ross continues, his eyes veering toward the side of the room Shane occupies, the man’s dress shirt lifted toward the cut on his head, “-or anyone else for that matter.”

“I’d do it again” Shane responds beneath his breath, though more than loud enough for the rest of the room to overhear. “He did nothing to deserve that” Kaye interjects, her finger pointed toward Shane before another voice earns her attention, defending the well-built, nine o’clock producer with a stern weight in his voice. “He tried to convince the board to let that fiend get away with what he did to Taylor” Aiden replies, stepping in front of Shane with his hand toward the primetime host.

“For the last time, I never tried to let Barry get away with what he did to her!” Ross exclaims with a much more angered reflexion, “how the hell was I going to justify replacing a fifteen year veteran anchor with an intern straight out of college to everyone with skin in the game?” Letting his arms hang freely by his sides, Vickers answers the man’s question on behalf of those targeted with the inquiry.

“You could’ve told them I was putting my career on the line for that call- which I was” Vickers replies, both hands finding sanctuary within the comfort of his pants pockets, “I made the call, and I offered myself as the fall guy in the event that it didn’t work out. You chose not to take me up on that.”

With his arms extended by each side, Ross sways his head from one side to the other as he leans further back in the chair, his wife’s hand gently rubbing his shoulder, “you still got your way, what does it matter now?” With her foot planted into the ground, Robin steps forward to resume her place in the conversation once more, “the difference is that I had to buy nearly ten percent of this company to usurp you” she retorts, “it cost me a fortune to get a rapist off my airwaves.”

“Alright, hold the fucking phone here-” Bruce interrupts, one hand carrying his reinforced briefcase whilst the other rubs at the sides of his aching head, “what’s going on here?” With his eyes peeled, Ross looks to the only man he can’t identify from the crowd with a scowl, “who are you?” the company’s founder wonders aloud, immediately drawing the ire of his primetime host’s agent.

“Bruce Langston, agent of Grant and the guy that’ll start stripping people of their wealth in court if someone doesn’t tell me what’s going on right now” the man responds, pointing toward the feeble founder before looking elsewhere for answers. “Ross is Robin’s ex-husband. He founded the company and she bought him out of it in 1999” Vickers replies, wasting little time in providing the man with context.

“And what’s the deal with this rapist-and-investors thing?” Bruce quickly inquires, his hand waving toward the open space between the two sides of the conversation, “is this something no one outside of this room is supposed to know about?” Shaking his head, Vickers refuses the notion as he parts his lips to reply, only for the words offered to the agent to come from a mouth other than his own.

“Arnold Barry was the solo anchor on Tonight at Nine before me” Taylor answers, still standing beside Grant just as she has throughout the discourse’s duration, “he raped me, they fired him, and had me man the broadcast from then on.” Attaching himself to the conclusion of the woman’s argument, Ross points his finger in her direction and adds further context suited to defend himself.

“And- as the majority owner of the company- I had to try to convince thousands of investors not to pull their money out in spite of the fact that we were replacing a veteran of the industry with a rookie fresh out of school!” Ross exclaims, prompting Bruce’s eyes to roll, “I never liked having to take that stance, but how else was I supposed to stop hundreds of millions from being pulled out of this company!?”

“You were just struck in the face by a guy with the physique of an ancient Greek sculpture, I’d suggest you not try to make anyone here more annoyed than they already are” Bruce interrupts, providing the company’s founder with the only warning he’s willing to offer before moving on. “So cancer-man was majority shareholder, a prick had his way with Taylor, and you bought your ex-husband out to push Mr. Touchy-Feely out” he concludes, laying the question to Robin, “am I missing anything there?”

“Yes” Ross replies on his ex-wife’s behalf, watching Bruce’s eyes roll before the agent’s face turns toward his direction, “you’re missing the fact that she didn’t buy me out.” Though having expected another defensive remark, the agent looks to the founder with an intrigued glare, compelled by the discovery he offers. “He owned thirty percent, she owned eleven” Vickers corrects, “his share went down to twenty, Robin’s went up to twenty-one.”

“Exactly. That still leaves fifty nine percent of the company in other hands” Kaye responds, lending credence to the agent’s correction, “she may be the owner, but she’s not the majority owner.”

“Fifty six” Taylor corrects, her arms crossed with one finger lifted toward the air, shrugging as she corrects the woman standing beside the founder, “I negotiated three percent at a fixed rate for myself when new shares hit the market.”

“I owned enough to make it so that I could stand before the board and justify replacing Barry with Taylor” Robin replies, not one to refuse her employees their credit when due, “nine o'clock’s ratings have never been higher, and she’s as big of a reason for why this ship was steadied as Sam or I are.” With his head bowed, Ross presses the sides of each hand against the desk’s hardwood finish as the group goes quiet, letting the increasing tensions settle before continuing to speak.

“Taylor is one hundred times the anchor that Barry ever was, and she’ll go down as the greatest call either of you have ever made” Ross confesses, not hard-pressed to look Vickers and Robin in the eyes as he admits such, “in the same breath, it’s also true that none of us had any way of knowing that for certain when she was promoted. Look no further than Sam feeling the need to put his job on the line in the event his call was wrong.”

“Let’s move this along, I’ve got the centre for the Miami Heat waiting to run up a bill at the most expensive steakhouse in the city” Bruce interrupts, resting his briefcase in the same seat he’d recently stepped out of. “The point is that I won’t be around for much longer and I’m not going to let the state take my twenty percent when I hit the ground” Ross proclaims, taking the same tension he’d attempted to let settle and forcing it to begin simmering once more, “I’m selling it off.”

With her eyebrows furrowed, Robin crosses her arms with a scowl before her pupils begin darting toward the much younger woman standing beside her ex husband. “I thought you were leaving it to your whore” the woman remarks, earning a disgusted eye roll from Kaye, the younger woman staring off into the distance with her tongue bitten, “that’s what you said you were doing when we agreed to ten percent.”

“We’re all different people than we were eight years ago, Robin” Ross retorts, shaking his head as he tries to free himself from the chair’s restraints once more, “Kaye doesn’t want the twenty percent.” Scoffing with a bemused grin, the twenty-one percent owner of the company shakes her head in disbelief, “of course she doesn’t. She never married you for your good looks in the first place” she murmurs, words intended to be heard by the younger woman she was left for.

“Go fuck yourself” Kaye retorts, clearly annoyed at the off-hand quips made toward her throughout the conversation’s duration, a comment the older woman takes pleasure in arguing back. “Oh bite me, you hussy” Robin shoots back, a confrontational front resuming in the wake of her calm demeanour no longer being needed, “you spent two years fucking my husband behind my back, you goddamn homewrecker. Taylor’s lucky I don’t judge her for the people she surrounds herself with.”

“I mean, I wouldn’t mind if you did” Grant jokes, aware of the room that he’s left to read and dismissive of the mood it’s filled with. “Wait, those two are connected?” Bruce wonders aloud, looking at the woman with the highest percentage of ownership in the company as he points toward Taylor and Kaye. “She was my roommate in college” the more-tenured anchor of Tonight at Nine replies, “she was my plus one at a company dinner when I was interning. That’s where she met Ross.”

“And I like her in spite of that fact, which must mean that I’ve earned my angel wings when the day comes” Robin sarcastically mutters, using her control of the conversation to redirect it toward the reason for the man’s stop by. “Sam just had a heart attack, Grant and Taylor need to be ready to come back to the air tomorrow night, and Bruce apparently has plans with Shaq, so let’s get on with it” she utters, hands placed on her hips with a deep breath, “who are you selling to?”

“No one yet, I wanted to give you a head’s up” Ross responds quickly, having waited through a physical assault and a trip down memory lane to explain himself. “I founded this company and I want it to do well. The people in this room- minus the guy with the briefcase- have kept it going smoothly. I’d like to keep my legacy intact” he proceeds to declare, “without an absolute majority, everyone here might feel a lot more pressure to perform.”

“We’re performing just fine” Grant quips back, shrugging his shoulders as his arms cross, “the ratings at nine o’clock are rock solid.” With both eyebrows slightly lowered, Ross looks past one half of the company’s premier anchors to their former executive producer, whose facial expression lacks the confidence of those he used to work with. “Not everyone’s ratings are rock solid” Ross replies, prompting those that hadn’t to turn their focus toward the E.P of eight o’clock.

“Aiden has creative control written into his contract. The audience he’s turning the program toward is a harder reach, but it’ll provide a much greater return if successful” Robin replies, defending the man to her ex husband almost as if he were the board she’d have to provide such a defence to. “Yes, if successful” Ross responds, coupling his hands together atop the desk as he leans over it slightly, trying to keep himself steady, “you have no way of guaranteeing that.”

“Sam and I were the people that made the call to move off Barry and onto Taylor eight years ago” Robin replies, watching her ex-husband shrug his shoulders and shake his head, “our resume speaks for itself- that’s what we’ll lean on.” With a sigh, the cancer-ridden founder pushes himself away from the desk gingerly, keeping himself balanced upon two feet as his arm is taken into his wife’s grasp.

“If it pans out, the two of you will look like visionaries. But if it doesn’t, your credibility takes as much of a hit as it did a boost from the switch to Taylor” Ross argues back, “all it takes is that one missed call and your leverage gets flushed. If that happens, you’ll want a majority ownership to fall back on. The calls you make from then on won’t be as easy to get away with unless you have it.”

“Is this all just some pitch to get us to buy you out of the company?” Shane wonders aloud, still nursing the wound over his forehead as he cuts into the conversation, “from the sound of it, you came here to do more than just warn us you were selling off your shares.” Shaking his head as his wife’s reach holds him steady, Ross replies in kind, “I don’t hold any ill will toward any of you- I mean it. Lehman owns nine percent and JPMorgan Chase owns seven- either can buy me out and overtake her.”

“They’ve both got their own issues to deal with” Robin responds, watching Ross step away from the desk in preparation to leave, “the last thing they need to do is pour more money than they have.” With an amused chuckle, the woman’s ex-husband throws a cap over his head and steps past Vickers with the aid of his wife.

They’re too big to fail. If they run out of funds, a federal bail out will be right around the corner” Ross retorts, making his way for the door before turning back, paying one more word of caution to the woman he’d left behind just as he prepares to do with the company he founded, “if you think there’s anything actually stopping them, that’s your own mistake- not mine.”

Not needing to offer anything more than what he already had, Ross steps through the door of Vickers’ office with Kaye by his side, departing the same building he owns with his fingerprints left behind. Simply via his presence alone, the uncomfortable aura over the office he now leaves in his wake continues to persist in spite of his departure, the warning he’d provided hanging over the large group’s head like a dark cloud, threatening to rain on the parade of their smooth-sailing vessel.

= Tonight at 9 is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 1 onward =

\ Wednesday, May 30th, 2007 /
\ 8:13 am est. - 5:13 am pst. /

“I’m clear tonight, right?” Carly calls out from the bathroom adjacent to her shared bedroom, applying mascara cautiously as her boyfriend shouts back from the kitchen. “Grant and Taylor are back in the ‘States tonight, so you should be” Aiden replies, wiping his eyes with the base of his hand as he groggily shifts through lumpy oatmeal with a metal spork, “but our luck with that has been piss poor and it’ll only get worse moving forward, so I’d plan on being up an extra hour just in case.”

“At this point, 2008 can’t get here soon enough!” Carly exclaims, her voice bouncing off the surface of her mirror and echoing throughout the dense bathroom walls, “I’m so ready to renegotiate!” Shaking his head as his chin pulls back, Aiden keeps his eyes set upon the clumped-together breakfast sat on the counter before him, replying to the woman out of the corner of his mouth.

“What good would renegotiating do?” Aiden shouts back, shaking his head as he takes the bowl into his hands, stepping off the chair beside the eating platform to discard the meal he’s no longer hungry for, “you’ve already got all the money you could ever want.” Whilst his girlfriend calls out from the furthest reaches of their bedroom, the man dumps his early-morning meal in the bin and places the dirty bowl and spork beneath the faucet’s running water.

“I don’t care about making more money- though I wouldn’t mind it” Carly responds, setting her brush down as she pulls her head back, creating distance between herself and the mirror as she judges the final product, “I can have them write a specific limit of days I’m allowed to be taken off eight o’clock to fill in for another show. Then neither of us will have to worry about going very long without each other.”

Lifting his eyebrows and jostling his chin toward the kitchen, Aiden ventures through the arch splitting the marble-clad preparation area from the corridor with his bedroom at the end of it. “That day is still just over seventeen months away, honey” the man replies back, gently grazing the drywall with the tips of his fingers as he slowly closes in the distance between himself and his significant other, “at this rate, I’m not sure I’ll make another two months- let alone seventeen of them.”

Rolling her eyes as she screws the brush back into its cap and hears her boyfriend’s footsteps near closer, Carly’s eyes drift toward the open door separating her from the rest area, waiting to see the man close in as she speaks. “I know they’re up your ass right now, but the ratings are going to shoot back up soon” the woman replies, offering the man that finally rounds the corner to face her a branch of hope to seek refuge atop, “we’re almost out of the growing pain stage.”

“Even if that weren’t the case, I’ve got more than the ratings working against me” Aiden replies, shaking his head as he presses his forearm against the doorway, leaning against it as he finishes his thought, “this whole thing’s been a disaster so far.” With one hand pressing into her hip as her opposite presses against the edge of the countertop, Carly challenges the man on his open-ended statement, intrigued by the mystery hidden within the part left unsaid. 

“What else is working against you?” the woman inquires, her question immediately prompting the man to part his lips and rummage through his thoughts in an awkward silence, searching for the easiest excuse to make up to incite a redirection of the conversation. “Listen, it’s too early in the morning for me to make something up. Please just trust me when I say that you don’t want to know” Aiden eventually caves, accepting that he’ll find nothing and hopes his plea will be accepted unquestioned.

Squinting her eyes as her face drifts slightly in one direction, Carly inspects the man’s slightly-concerned posture before accepting that his statement is probably correct. “Alright then” the woman sighs, placing the mascara down before slowly reaching for the nearest brush, over-playing her suspicions of the man’s secret as she squints toward him, playfully showing him her doubt in his remarks.

“I wouldn’t keep it a secret if it wasn’t important to” Aiden reassures, trying to ease any worry that may linger amongst her before taking it upon himself to guide the discourse elsewhere, “how was your date with the Monopoly man last night?” Her playful demeanour immediately falling into one of displeasure, Carly gently pulls the brush from the ends of her dark hair as her head tilts to the side.

“Don’t do that, you know it wasn’t a date” the woman replies, the disapproving grimace she returns to the man immediately prompting him to ease his light-hearted dialogue shift. “Relax, I’m just kidding” Aiden assures the woman, putting both hands out before stepping into the bathroom, placing one hand upon each of her shoulders and leaning in to press his lips against hers, both of his eyes widening the moment they lock.

Keeping the kiss locked for a few moments, Aiden’s eyes remain wide open as he looks toward the woman’s face, the immediate look of regret that comes over her expression telling him exactly what he’d instantly assumed. “I promise, he kissed me as I was getting into the car and I didn’t realise until the second he pulled away” Carly reassures, knowing her boyfriend had smelled the cologne of the same man she’d purposefully mislead the night prior, “I made up an excuse and he took me back here.”

Rolling his eyes as he begins to pull away, Aiden’s arm is quickly taken back by the woman’s hand as she holds him back, his half-hearted spin away thwarted before he could even make half a rotation. “I know that’s not going to sit with you and I’m sorry, but it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t let my guard down” Carly continues to remark, “sometimes, when I do this stuff for intel, I forget I’m supposed to act like I’m on a date with them. I just get caught up talking and asking questions.”

“Wherever your mind goes when you do these things doesn’t really matter, all that does is that it doesn’t become more than a fake date for info” Aiden replies, giving into the woman’s physical plea for his eyes to return to hers with a pointed finger, “just tell me that kiss meant nothing.”

“Of course it meant nothing, Aiden!” Carly quickly responds, understanding why the man would be so disheartened by the unpleasant detail she’d purposefully omitted as she does, “it was nothing more than a move he’d snuck past me after a fake date I went on for a favour- I promise.” Still visibly annoyed, Aiden’s disgruntled posture is soothed slightly by his girlfriend’s reassurance, the tension in his shoulders dropping as the stress in his eyes follows suit.

Remaining silent, Aiden lets out a sigh and continues with his turn around, passing the woman nothing more than a nod of acceptance as he pulls out of the bathroom, returning to the kitchen to await her work preparations to conclude. With an apologetic expression as the man wanders off, Carly’s eyes soon fill with remorse and regret as she takes the brush back to her hair, clearly still wearing her boyfriend’s reaction on her conscience.

|

\ Wednesday, May 30th, 2007 /
\ 10:24 pm est. - 7:24 pm pst. /

“You’ve seen me naked, you don’t have to knock” Taylor calls out, sitting behind her desk with her fingers tapping rapidly along the keyboard before her. “I know that, but it doesn’t hurt to be considerate” Grant jokes, stepping through the door with a smile on his face, one that slowly falls in favour of a more curious expression upon the lack of a reply, something that prompts him to peer past the knick knacks atop his girlfriend’s desk and toward the screen of her computer.

“You can follow the market on this thing?” the masculine anchor wonders aloud, prompting his girlfriend to look back at him with a raised eyebrow, “what? I don’t use this thing for stuff other than work.” With a smirk on her face, Taylor shakes her head and sets her sights back toward the screen, changing the page on her browser with a few clicks of the mouse.

“Why are you following the LMC stock?” Grant inquires, taking one of the chairs in front of the woman’s desk and carrying it with him as he makes his way closer to her. “If I know what I think I do about the market, I’ll be able to see the change when Ross sells his twenty percent- or at least a good chunk of it” Taylor responds, pulling back in her seat with an elbow pressing into a nearby armrest, her head supported by the knuckles her chin rests atop.

“You don’t expect him to dump it off this fast, do you?” Grant queries, lowering himself into his chair before resting his palm upon her thigh. “I don’t really know anything about the stock market, but Vince told me what to look for” Taylor answers honestly, her face painted in the bright colours that occupy her screen, “I don’t know, he could get rid of it pretty fast, right?”

With raised eyebrows, Grant tilts his head toward one side as he reads the lines on his girlfriend’s screen, honestly incapable of understanding what any of them mean. “I mean, in theory he could” the man replies, a brief chuckle kept to himself as his head slowly shakes with uncertainty, “I don’t know much about the market either, but I doubt a few hundred million dollars worth of shares would be able to change hands this quickly.”

With a disappointed visage, Taylor’s head falls back into the seat she sits against as her boyfriend watches on silently, reading her expression as the newsroom beyond their shared walls continues to empty. “Why’s this got you so wrapped up?” Grant wonders aloud, leaning forward in his seat as his palm gently rolls along her leg.

“Because Ross is right” Taylor answers with complete transparency, turning to look at her boyfriend as the harsh, white light falls from her face. “All it takes is one of the big guys to come in with a fat stack of cash, and Robin doesn’t have that leverage” she continues to speak, a visible distress clearly held within her visage, though she fights valiantly to hide it from her other half’s onlooking eyes, “she’s been in charge for so damn long that not even I know what the alternative is.”

“You don’t know that someone’s gonna swoop in and outmatch her, babe” Grant retorts, only to find his attempt at reassurance falling upon deaf ears. “Do you know how many corporations have a little over a percent in LMC? Do you realise how easy it would be for them to snatch up a larger share than Robin?” Taylor inquires, not needing to know how the market operates in order to understand the simple maths behind it, “don’t you realise what would happen if Ross sold to the wrong people?”

“Things that wouldn’t affect us as long as we could prove we kept people watching” Grant answers, watching his girlfriend roll her eyes and look away before her stare falls back upon him. “Taylor, look at me and tell me that we haven’t both gone through worse than this” the man doubles down, guiding her sights back toward him and following through, “this, all of this- it’s just uncertainty. The scary part is not knowing what the outcome is, but it’s nothing compared to what we’ve already seen.”

“Grant, it’s not that I’m scared of what’s gonna happen. The idea of the wrong person buying Ross out worries me, yes. But I’m not scared of who it falls into the hands of” Taylor retorts, shaking her head with a half-smile on her face, “I’d just prefer to not be bothered with some greedy prick walking into the newsroom and demanding a bunch of things be changed just to suit some grand vision they have of the news.”

“Alright, yeah- that’d be nice not to worry about. But come on, it’s not worth sitting alone, in the dark, in your office following the stock market- which closed almost five and a half hours ago” Grant quickly counters, taking his free hand and letting it rest on the side of his co-anchor’s face, “even if some prick like Rupert Murdoch walks in with a fistful of cash, we’ve got tenure and clauses in our contracts to make sure he can’t shut us up if we decide to start going PG-13.”

With a subdued chuckle, Taylor’s eyelids press shut before eventually parting, letting her eyes return to Grant as the air goes quiet, not a word shared between them for a few seconds as they let the moment simmer. Grazing her cheek with his thumb, the newer of the two anchors keeps his focus on the woman’s eyes as they begin to share in a mutual loss of time, each second passing blissfully and without interruption.

“I’m the luckiest man in the world” Grant soon says aloud, interjecting his voice in the silent retreat as the woman’s smile meets him, her heart worn on her sleeve metaphorically- or rather her face in a more literal manner. “You can say that again seventy times over and I still wouldn’t disagree with you” Taylor responds, her whip-cracking humour met with a smile as her boyfriend leans in, their lips pressing together.

For a few seconds, their kiss continues, not a sound left to interrupt them aside from the suction of their romantic entanglement pulling apart. “Alright, we should get going” Taylor soon concludes, patting the man on the leg and lifting herself from the comfort of her chair, her boyfriend soon to follow. “You don’t need to tell me twice” Grant replies, stepping away from his seat and wrapping his arms around the woman’s waist, holding her close as they make for the office’s exit together.

== Tonight at 9 ==