Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 252: The Public Eye

A few days later Isaac found himself in the last place he’d ever expected to be—the lobby of a reality television producer. He didn’t watch reality TV, he didn’t enjoy it, he generally wasn’t a fan of it. The email he’d gotten had gone straight into the “ignore” folder and that would have been the end of it.

But Arthur had had a great idea, and now he was here, at the offices of Spectacular Productions.

“My name is Isaac Thoma, I have an appointment,” he introduced himself at the front desk and was instantly waved in without so much as having his ID checked. Sure, there were people who’d throw an absolute fit at being asked to prove their identity, but basic precautions did save a lot of time and money.

The building itself was a fairly standard office building, containing the administrative arm of several different companies, alongside basic eating arrangements such as a coffee shop on the ground floor.

Isaac had made his way to the elevator and took it all the way up to the top floor, which was apparently entirely rented by this company, and introduced himself there, as the building’s lobby was completely open and lacked a reception desk.

The receptionist led him to the head office, which was open to reveal something that could best be described as the bastard lovechild of a corporate office and a geek’s mancave, covered in little tchotchkes, action figures, monster bits, and weapon models.

It reminded Isaac slightly of his own office, except that was stuffed with functional pieces of equipment and hunting trophies, rather than a random assortment of stuff.

But just taking one look at the place told Isaac that its owner was someone who truly loved this job of his.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Thoma, I’m Daniel Herbert, I’m in charge around here, but you can call me whatever you want, Daniel, Dan, I’m not picky about that,” Herbert introduced himself as he stepped around the desk to shake Isaac’s hand.

“I really can’t put into words how happy I was to read your response, we’ve been trying to set up a meeting with an S-Ranker for months. Really, I think I almost dropped dead of a heart attack when I saw tha- … you don’t want to hear about any of that, do you?”

While he’d been talking at the speed of light, Herbert had gone back around his desk and sat down. He didn’t make any obvious movements to activate his magic, but an illusionary spell manifested a light show in the center of his desk. He was pretty good at that, Isaac had to admit.

A huge demon, fighting against a group of warriors clad in various outfits, wielding a wide variety of weapons, could be seen. Countless small figures fell, but eventually, the demon finally succumbed to the barrage of attacks.

“This is what I want to bring to the world. Man vs. the new nature, but I think we both know how dangerous this is. Having a [Raid Boss] around without an S-Ranker is a terrible idea for one thing, and in general, blood sports that end with people dead isn’t going to fly with any channel.”

“So you figured that an arena that doesn’t let anyone die and can summon the most spectacular monsters in existence at the drop of a hat would make all of that a hell of a lot easier,” Isaac summarized, “Let me be blunt with you, I’m not here because I’m chomping at the bit to produce reality television. I’m here because I think it’s very important to share knowledge far and wide and a friend of mine recently reminded me that I don’t non-educational programs still help inform the public.”

“I mean, it might be a bit different than what I had in mind, but we can work around that,” Herbert admitted.

“Right now, my main concern is this show would give people the wrong impression about the danger posed by [Raid Bosses]. If they get moved down by the dozens because you pit them against a hundred S-Rankers at a time, we’d see a spike in bad summonings,” Isaac explained as he withdrew a folder from his spatial pocket, “I’ve thought about this a fair bit, and had my lawyer write up a basic contract.

“In essence, it states that you can’t call on Sun Wukong within the first five episodes, even if he asks, you can’t have more than one-third of contestant teams contain S-Rankers, and even a live show needs either an automatic censorship [Skill] or a significant streaming delay because this is going to get bloody.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Herbert said after he’d tapped the folder with his finger and activated a [Skill]. Apparently, he had a [Skill] to speedread. Isaac just used his [Aura] for that, taking in entire pages simultaneously.

The director then spent a few more minutes explaining the nitty-gritty of his vision.

“Fundamentally, one thing has to be clear,” Isaac said, “I’m an extremely busy man, it’ll be you and your people who do the actual heavy lifting here. I won’t be around to micro-manage anything. My conditions are hard boundaries, and no kind of ‘oh, he was available just on this one day’ will fly. My contract reflects that. I can be plenty flexible on most subjects, but not those.”

“Do you really think that’s necessary?” Herbert asked, “I know television can be influential, but can it really be that bad?”

“Most people are convinced that cars will explode as seen in movies or on TV shows after a crash. Every single first aid course I’ve ever been to has corrected that misconception, but even I still somewhat believe it.

“Chloroform is an anesthetic that is guaranteed to either kill the victim or cause severe brain damage if used the way it is in movies and TV shows. When used in surgery, you need an anesthesiologist constantly making sure the affected person doesn’t drop dead, and modern anesthesia methods are a billion times safer. But most people who hear the word chloroform won’t know any of that.

“Or how about the way that people falling into water is depicted? Everyone has at least heard of the fact that the surface is going to be as hard as concrete if you fall from more than … I believe the distance is forty meters? But when you think about it, really think, how do you imagine someone diving off a high place into water ending? Your rational mind knows that should be fatal, but you’ll imagine that person surviving.

“A picture is worth a thousand words, and a video is worth a thousand pictures, Mr. Herbert. I want to show the world how [Raid Boss] battles go. I don’t want to mislead people into thinking it’s safe. Considering the severity of the situation, I think my ironclad contract is appropriate.”

Herbert began to mop at his forehead, removing the sweat that had accumulated during Isaac’s speech.

“Your contract basically gives you a veto power for when any of your conditions are even slightly affected.” He said.

“I’m not asking for a general veto,” Isaac pointed out, “Merely an accelerated path of resolution in case of conflict. That’s the only way this will work for me. You’ll have to find someone else if it doesn’t work for you.”

Herbert signed, though he didn’t seem particularly happy about it.

And with that done, Isaac left soon after, grinning internally. That show would be an absolute, unmitigated, disaster. And then the world would get a front-row seat to the devastation a [Raid Boss] could unleash under most circumstances.

Sure, idiots who grossly overestimated themselves would continue to exist, but at least now anyone of reasonable intelligence would have a better idea of what they might be getting into.

He was on his way back to the university when his phone dinged with a news alert, one he’d been waiting on for a while. A ghostly ship had sighted in the middle of the Atlantic, briefly pulling into the port of Jamestown, Saint Helena to resupply before vanishing beneath the waves.