The Plot.
“Are you there master?”, hissed Nicola urgently.
The room was dark but for the light of the full moon shining through the window. Somewhere outside a dog howled, which set off a series of pets in the street, and angry yells.
“Devices off?”, responded a male voice somewhere in the room.
“Devices off”, she confirmed.
“I must say it’s good see you with your hair down, not that I condone that sort of thing mind you”, came the other voice. Before breaking into an unpleasant laugh, and then “is everything ready?”
“Yes master, just say the word and the plan will be actioned. You’ll be back in your rightful place, and I’ll be there beside you.”
“And none of them suspect a thing? Not that it matters.”
“No, Seymour and Winston spent the whole day arguing over who gets to be deputy. Your boy Christopher has no idea what’s going on in the room, let alone behind his back.”
“Can’t wait to see the look on his face, still let’s not spoil the surprise. You’re sure about the numbers?”
“I am. While Mr Only-Boys-Allowed has been in there trying to make a deal, I’ve been spending quality time inducting our new intake. Running a few ice breakers, floating a few scenarios. They’re well up for it - most of them are only here because they wanted to be you.”
“Good, good. And you’re confident this is going to be broken by someone credible in the media?”
“It wasn’t easy. We couldn’t have one of the usual NZME cheerleaders, we want a wider audience to believe it. I didn’t want to trust anyone from another company in case they felt some sort of moral twinge, or whatever it is liberals suffer from. So I’ve found the perfect solution. One of the last remaining reporters at the Herald with credibility.”
The messenger.
Shayne Currie, editor of the NZ Herald, stood in front of the team for his usual Monday morning briefing.
“Right team it’s time for a new tune, we’ve sung all 27 verses of the sky is falling, now the election is over it’s time for a new number. One that says everything will be alright. Focus on how great things are now National are back in their rightful place.
Just look at this EU fair trade deal with Australia, it’s fallen over, failed. I want to be reading how that would never happen under Christopher Luxon. How our trade champion, and saviour, will ensure that sort of thing never happens to us.”
Liam Dann, Business Editor, spoke up, “you do know the last government already signed an FTA with the EU a few months back, right? Maybe we should do a series on all the Trade Agreements that came under Labour, it must be newsworthy it was unprecedented how successful they were. They did the EU, the UK, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.”
Shayne glared at him. “Are you some sort of communist Dann? Look I’m sorry your little leftie mates lost but from now on it’s yesterday was a shit show and tomorrow is fucking rainbow unicorns - you got it?” When I read your words you can talk all the economic mumbo jumbo you like as long as readers are clear - Christopher Luxon has saved us from the apocalypse and his name must be hallowed. Do you hear me Dann? His name - hallowed!
Liam returned to his desk feeling pretty angry, but the reality was he had a mortgage to pay so he bit his lip. Waiting on his laptop was an envelope with his name handwritten on the outside. He opened it to find a newspaper article ready to run with instructions of when it should go out, and that it must be under his name.
“This day just couldn’t get any better”, Liam thought.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Nick's Kōrero to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.