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“I can have a fire if I want?” Mavis ran a possessive hand over the rich lapis lazuli of the hearth

“Sure, but it is nearly June”

“I don’t care if I roast” Arazed up through the sky dome, and plopped down on the lake-sized bed with its thick silver cushions “I feel like a queen No, no, an e mattress undulated beneath her “How do you stay normal in a place like this?”

“I don’t know I haven’t lived here very long”

Still rolling lavishly frohed “It would only takeup to the padded headboard, she punched buttons Lights flickered on and off, revolved, sparkled Music throbbed, pulsed Water began to run in the next room

“What’s that?”

“You programmed your bath,” Eve informed her

“Oops Not yet” Mavis flicked it off, tried another, and had the panel on the far wall sliding open to reveal a ten-foot video screen “Definitely decent Wanna eat?”

While Eve settled in the dining roo off in weeks, Nadine Furst scowled over the editing of her next broadcast

“I want to enhance that, freeze on Dallas,” she ordered the tech “Yeah, yeah, bring her up She looks daood on camera”

Sitting back, she studied the five screens while the tech worked the panel Editing Roo clash of voices froether sea as sex The majority of broadcasters left the process to their techs, but Nadine wanted her hand in here Everywhere

In the newsroom one level down, it would be bedlam She enjoyed that, too The scurry to beat the competition to the latest sound bite, the

latest picture, thetheir ’links for onetheir computers for that last bit of data

The competition wasn’t all outside on Broadcast Avenue There was plenty of it right in the Channel 75 newsroom

Everybody wanted the big story, the big picture, the big ratings Right now, she had it all And Nadine didn’t intend to lose it