"We've been considering bringing back Dr. Anne Lindsey."
"You can't!" At the startled looks she got from around the table, Laura hastily explained herself. "You hired me to find out what your fans are thinking and what they want to bring up your ratings, right?". Not waiting for an answer, she continues "The fans almost unanimously hate Anne Lindsey. Almost as much as they hate Cassandra." At the executives open mouth she rushed in. "Yes, I said almost unanimously. But her fans are few, far between, and NOT talking." She meant on the internet. Laura had started a small consulting company mainly for sci-fi tv. shows that surfed the internet to research the fans and their opinions. She didn't tell them what she was doing, of course, just talked like she had in college only with a preset agenda occasionally, the perfect job for a sci-fi freak from birth and a more recent internet addict.
"I see, if you will make a presentation at next weeks meeting, we will consider your objections.", the representative of the powers that be coceded.
Laura sighed with relief when the executives started walking out. She hadn't meant to burst out like that but the very thought of that woman back on the show made her shiver.
"You seem to know what you talking about.", said the star of the show.
He had been at the meeting, but Laura hadn't noticed him staying behind. "I sat in my grandfather's bedroom when I was 15 watching the pilot.", she answered his question.
"So you're a fan.", he stated with a strange look on his face.
"Highlander, Star Trek, Babylon 5, Earth2, VR5, I've watched them all. Why?"
"Oh no reason. I just wondered how much you knew. See you next week.", he turned and walked out still wearing the strange look.
"Maybe he's having an off day", she mused.
"I don't believe this. I'm about to screw up worse than I ever have before in my life and HE's going to see it. If I didn't know better, I'd swear I'd been set up."
When all of the people were seated, she began her presentation. Laura had racked her brain the entire week to come up with a way to properly express the forumites apathy when it came to her. Why not let them see the forum for themselves? She had already connected her webtv and gone to the forum, all she had to do was surf down. "Ladies and gentlemen this is the Rysher Forum, an online chat about Highlander. Luckily, USA has been rerunning the season Anne Lindsey was on." She continued this way for 30 minutes adroitly avoiding posts that could have been embarassing to her or the actors at the table. "If you bring Anne back, they'll riot." she concluded.
"I see.", the same executive said again. "I don't think that we'll be pursuing that storyline after all."
Laura slumped in relief thinking "If only they knew what I've saved them from."
"By the way, you may want to invest in some faster equipment."
"It's not the equipment.", she replied, too tired to worry about diplomacy. "It's the forum. For some unknown reason they haven't split it yet, like they are supposed to, so it just keeps getting larger and takes longer to reload."
"We'll see about that.", he said as he strode off to his next meeting.
Meanwhile, Laura thought "If I just got the forum split they should errect a monument to me."
"Do you go to the forum often?" She had forgotten about the other boobytrap in the room and after hearing that voice without electronic interference, she wasn't sure she could carry on an intelligent conversation.
The truth is always safest. "Every day, it's part of my job."
"Good. I was hoping you could help me find someone."
"Who?"
"The person who wrote this.", he said, handing her a copy of Kidnapped: A Harem Adventure.
Laura swallowed convulsively recognizing her own story. "Do you know her name?"
"No but I do know she's part of a fan club of mine, a harem actually. For some reason Adrian thought you might be able to help me."
What was that guy? Psychic? Laura couldn't remember how many sisters had been caught lately but now that she thought of it Adrian always seemed to be there. "I try not to get to involved in the shows that I work for.", she lied through her teeth. "But I guess that I could ask around. "What exactly do you want to know?"
"How to get in touch with her I suppose. There's something in there that I find rather interesting and I'd like to ask her a few questions."
"As I said, I'll try, but some of these people guard thier privacy well.", she told him with every intention of "forgetting".
"I appreciate that.", he finally left her alone.
"It might be worth it to turn myself in to have an excuse to get that close to him again.",she thought dreamily.
As she logged onto the forum that night, she found Crom asking about her too. This didn't surprise her as much since she had shanghaied him into the story. She was pleased to note that he liked it and that he didn't seem to mind being a "Horseman of the Harem". Some of the forumites didn't like Crom but she enjoyed his occasional eloquence. "If the real thing could do that, the world might be worth living in.", she thought sometimes.
"I came to see whar you had found out about that writer.". He then added with a dangerous look she knew well, "I was also wondering how you knew it was writen by a woman without reading the story."
Caught off guard, Laura turned to her computer thinking furiously and noticed a post not yet sent in a familiar writing style. She turned to the man across from her in shock. "Crom?!"
Across the street, a satisfied looking actor hands an envelope to a woman with a button that says Carpe Rogem on it.
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