LIFE FINDS A WAY

Max Headroom - Life Finds A Way

Ned Grossberg stared at his head of Research and Development in pure shock.

"Would you mind repeating that?"

"I said," Jenny told him, her voice calm and her eyes smiling, "I'm pregnant."

"And just when did you conceive this child?" Grossberg asked. "And with whom? If one of my other employees is responsible for..."

"I wasn't molested, Mr. Grossberg," Jenny assured him. "And he doesn't work for Network 66."

"An old classmate of yours, then? At that college reunion?"

"Yes, and no. In that order," Jenny explained. "It actually happened here. About four months ago."

Grossberg did a few mental calculations. He wasn't as smart as Jenny or her Network 23 counterpart Bryce Lynch, but he wasn't without brains of his own. As the name Bryce Lynch flashed through his mind, his calculations came to a halt.

"Lynch."

Jenny nodded.

"You slept with an employee from a rival network!"

Jenny shook her head. "One we did not sleep, and two you were in negotiations with him to try and lure him over here to Network 66 at the time it happened."

"What do you plan on doing?" Grossberg inquired.

"Well, I wish to request funding for increasing the size of my living quarters. Now that there will be a baby here I will need additional space for the nursery and a play room."

"You can get that funding from Bryce," Grossberg told her. "It's his baby, not mine. If I start handing you funds for baby things, people are going to get the wrong idea and I will not see my reputation go up in smoke."

"Bryce doesn't know," Jenny explained.

"Then I suggest that you tell him."

Jenny turned to her vu-phone after Grossberg left her studio.

"This is going to be a very interesting call," she told herself as the punched in Bryce's number.

"No, Max, I won't tell you what I was doing at Network 66 before Grossberg and I started negotiations," Bryce said. He wasn't sure why he didn't want to say anything to his computer-generated best friend. It just felt a little too personal to share.

"But I tell you all my juicy gossip."

"First off you tell me Edison's gossip," Bryce pointed out and secondly, "I really wish you wouldn't."

"Bryce pick up the phone, I know you're there."

"Hold on," Bryce threw a blanket over Max's screen, causing a tirade of complaints to issue from Max. "Sorry about the background noise, Jenny. I think Max is trying to make up a new song."

"Yes," Jenny agreed. "He always composes death metal music after you throw a blanket over him. Bryce we have something very serious to talk about."

"Look, if you're mad about me not attending the school reu-"

"I'm pregnant, Bryce," Jenny cut him off.

Bryce blinked in confusion. "And you're telling me this why?"

"Because it's your baby I'm carrying around inside me," Jenny explained. "Apparently you didn't get the talk."

"Is this one of those biological things?" Bryce asked.

"Yes, Bryce," Jenny said patiently. "This is one of those biological things. When we got into bed together a few months ago, the fluid that left your body fertilized a cell inside of my body and now we're going to have a baby."

"So, besides an apartment that's big enough for at least three people, what do we need?" Bryce inquired.

That was a bit more than Jenny had expected.

"I wasn't planning on an apartment."

"Well I remember my little sister Laura used to get into everything when she was two," Bryce recalled. "We can't keep a kid like that in a lab. Who knows what might happen? We need a place, and a baby sitter. Maybe Blank Paula?"

"Can we trust her?" Jenny asked.

"Well, I'm pretty sure the baby isn't going to be a camera, so yeah. I think so."

"Great. That's the apartment and the sitter dealt with. Now we'll need baby furniture and clothes. And you'll need ear plugs."

"Ear plugs?" Bryce asked.

"For when Cheviot and Murray find out about this. Not to mention Edison Carter."

"Good idea," Bryce agreed.

After Jenny disconnected the call, Bryce contacted Big Time TV.

"Reg, I need a favor," he said.

"You look a bit frazzled. In a spot of trouble?"

"Nothing illegal," Bryce told him. "I just found out Jenny's going to have a baby. Trouble is she works at Network 66. I don't think I'll be working for Network 23 for much longer after Cheviot finds out."

"Romeo and Juliet didn't even have families that were as set against each other as your two bosses are."

Romee-who?" Bryce looked confused.

"Shakespeare," Reg explained.

"Oh, that guy who wrote overly romantic stuff in that weird way," Bryce remembered. "Not my strongest point."

"How did you win this girl of yours over?" Dominique asked from behind Reg. "It usually takes some form of poetry or other romantic stuff."

"We were discussing a mechanical fly I'd created as a class project."

Dominique put her face in her palms and shook her head in an amused look that spoke of how pathetic that sounded.

"The program it flew by," Bryce continued, "involved the mating range of said fly and I was just wondering what was so great about mating that any fly would have a specific flight range for finding another one. Now I know."

"So, you think it's worth it?" Reg asked.

"Definitely," Bryce smiled happily.

"Well, now that you've successfully mated," Reg told him, "you and your partner are going to need a lot of things. Apartment, clothes, transportation, furniture. And food. You've got a pregnant woman in your life now. She's going to need to eat more that just vending machine food and Zik Zak Burger Packs."

"WHAT!?" Came a voice from nearby.

Bryce spun in his chair and found himself facing Cheviot.

Cheviot looked at Reg, "He'll call you back, Reg." he said, disconnecting the call. "Let's start at the words 'successfully mated', shall we?" he said, to Bryce.

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