Jace was supposed to be here half an hour ago to get me in for my MRI, but his assistant says she hasn’t heard from him.
At first, I was worried that I’d showed up late, but it looks like I’m off the hook. Still, there are better things I could be doing with my time.
“Is there any way I could have you give me a call if or when he shows up?” I ask her. “I’ve just got to step outside and make a phone call.”
“Sure,” Yuri answers. “He won’t be much longer.”
“Thanks,” I tell her, and walk out of the office.
I’m not feeling that great right now, thanks to my new round of chemo, but I take the stairs. My phone has trouble in elevators.
I dial the number.
“Grace?”
“How’s it going?” I ask.
“It’s going fine,” Andrew, my contact in Ohio, says.
“You know what I’m talking about,” I tell him. “Are we good?”
“We’ve hit a bit of a snag,” he says. “It shouldn’t amount to much, but my boss is on one of his down home values kicks and I want to shoot myself.”
“Is there a reason I’m supposed to care about that?” I ask, taking a break on the first landing and staring down at the Escher-esque view of the remaining stairs to the ground floor.
“Yeah,” he says, “when he’s in a mood like this, it’s hard to convince him to take on new out-of-state commercial clients. I don’t think he’s really in the frame of mind right now to even consider selling out to anyone.”
“I’m not asking him to sell out,” I tell him. “I’m not even asking him to change that much of his programming. I just want M.E. on the bottom left of the screen. We can worry about the programming later.”
“You’re going about this the wrong way,” Andrew says. “If you want a takeover, you’re going to have to come up with a firmer position than that.”
“Do you know how Romans used to pacify the countries that fell to them?” I ask.
“How?” he asks.
“It didn’t always work, and God knows there were plenty of insurrections, but the Romans found that if they allowed a conquered people to retain their culture, their religion, everything but the basic allegiance which the fallen group was required to shift toward Rome, taxes and all, that they could keep more of the people from rebelling most of the time,” I tell him. “Haven’t you ever wondered why Greek and Roman gods and goddesses seem to be so interchangeable?”
“I have never wondered that in my life,” he says.
“Well, first off, much of Roman culture itself was devised from earlier Greek sources, but the two remained relatively stable in a lot of ways for a pretty significant amount of time because it was enough for Rome, during that time, to conquer. They didn’t care so much that people worshipped different gods or had other forms of entertainment. They got what they wanted: they got more land, more trade, more taxes, more citizens to fight in their wars, and more innovation than they would have if they came in only as a conquering force without any regard to the basic culture of the people they conquered,” I tell him.
“Of course, one of these days, we’ll want to have every bit of our programming going every second of your broadcast day, but we’re not going to push that until you’ve had a chance to see that we respect what you’re doing. If we didn’t, wel
l, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“That’s a pretty good tactic,” Andrew says.
“I think so,” I respond, sitting down on the top step of the next flight of stairs. “Not everyone here thinks that’s the way to do this sort of thing, but then again, not too many other people here are ready for Rome to expand, either, so-”
“That’s not what I meant,” he interrupts. “I mean it’s a good tactic to go off on weird shit like that. I still have no idea what you’re talking about, but I’m ready to give part of my check to Caesar. You know what I’m saying?”
“Hardly,” I answer. “I guess we just click that way. So, you’re going to talk to him?”
“I’ll test the waters,” he says, “but I really think we’re going to want to wait until after sweeps when he’s good and depressed.”
“At some point, you’re going to have to stop dangling your feet and grow some balls,” I tell him, and hang up the phone.
I had more to say, but I didn’t want him to hear what’s about to happen.