How many times could Maple Defleuvier lie in one day—and how many times would she get away with it before it all comes crashing down? (Also, how did one measure the amount of lies they professed? If a simple system were to be used, each lie would be one unit.)

Maple's first daily lie had been to Mrs. Parviére, her grumpy neighbour who had not smiled since she'd left Québec decades earlier. The unfriendly lady had asked if Maple had forgotten that today was trash day. Maple had forgotten—because there was no way she would ever remember such a trivial piece of information when her brain was already stretching the limits of its elasticity to accommodate all the other things she needed to think about. (Running a daily soap opera was a lot of work and required Maple to have opinions on everything from storylines to the colour of a character's socks, which left little space for the trash-picking schedule). So, Maple had lied, brightly smiled, and said, "No, of course not! I know trash day is every Wednesday."

"It's Monday," Mrs. Parviére had responded while the lumpy skin of her face had formed into a frown.

That would have been Lie Number One, and this, the lie she was about to utter to Ermet Ersweld, would be Lie Number Thirty-Five. It was 7:30 a.m.

It'd been a long morning filled with dodged questions, white lies, and lots and lots of "don't worry I have everything under control."

She had showed up to the studio early, hoping to catch some respite and carve time to write one of the dozens of stories she needed to squeeze out of her brain for the show. Bōøbol had cut the production budget by 30%, and the writing staff had been the first to go. When she'd originally been approached for the showrunner role, Maple had viewed it as a creative challenge. The executives at Bōøbol had wanted to take Betteraves & Betrayals in a new creative direction, one that would better reflect the ever-changing landscape of Canadian society and encourage a younger viewership. Maple had been given full creative control of the show at the tender age of 26—who could resist such an opportunity?

Three years and countless lies later, the challenge had turned into a meat grinder.

"I have an idea," she said out loud as she ignored the count of her lies adding up to Thirty-Six.

She needed an alternate way to quantify her deception anyway. In the current system, Lie Number One and Thirty-Six were on the same level of fucked, which didn't sit right with her. Lying to the French Grinch next door about trash pick-up was harmless. If Ermet Ersweld, her boss, knew Maple was bluffing, he could end her career.

"I have an idea," she repeated to buy time because she didn't have an idea. But if she didn't come up with one quickly, Ermet was going to leave her office (a tiny box built on wooden stilts in the corner of the sound stage) to call Bōøbol—and nobody wanted Bōøboll's people to get involved.

"Legacy character," Maple murmured. Then louder, convincing herself with the idea, "Legacy character!"

Ermet, the perfect reflector of male mediocrity, took the bait. He was as young as Maple, but she'd gotten her job based on skills and a track record of writing stories people spent money on. Ermet's father had founded Ersweld Included and his son had inherited the company five years prior. He was Sobriquet Lake's most infamous Nepo Baby.

"Legacy character, again?" he asked, dubious. "Who? Tamara's return worked in season 70, but when we did Brandwig and Lucialana last season, people hated it! They complained Brandwig was fat and Lucialana ugly. Nobody likes old folks, they creep people out! They remind them too much of death."

Maple's tight smile didn't flinch as she thought of the actors behind the two characters, both in their early fifties. "Yes, well, Brandwig and Lucialana were always small legacy characters. Appetizers before the real return..." She suspended her words, delighting in Ermet's fascinated glaze.

Ermet blinked, snapping back to reality. "No—" He raised a finger at Maple. "No more of your bullshit, Maple. I won't fall for it again."

He definitely would if Maple impressed him with the right one. He always did and always had. That's how their working relationship had been running for the past few years. Ermet worried about money and Maple soothed him with tales of sexy aliens. Betteraves & Betrayals had been on for over seventy years, and what had once been a rating's darling was now a crumbling edifice of Canadian television. Maple had meant to be its saving grace.

She hadn't saved shit.

In just a few years, her storylines filled with aliens from faraway galaxies had turned long-time viewers away. The show had been called "campy," "trash," and to quote recently elected member of parliament Ricky Fox, "Woke Warrior Maple Dufleuvier succeeded in spoiling a Canadian classic with tales of intergalactic orgies and alien semen. What a tragedy."

She'd made it worse and now she had to think of a convincing story she could sell to Ermet until she had the opportunity to crawl under a desk to think. (She did her best thinking under desks.) The show was in trouble, and as its showrunner, it was all on her to fix it.

"It's not bullshit, I promise. I know exactly how we save the show." Thank god for those awkward acting classes Maple had taken back in high school. The only way through this was to bluff, one lie at a time. "We bring back the person who started it all. The icon."

Ermet's eyes widened, he was back on the sweet train of Maple's Lies. "No? You don't mean—"

She nodded with more fervour than necessary. "I do." Paused for dramatic effect. "The one and only..."

"Daphne Dutrignon?" Ermet exclaimed, clapping his hands. "No fucking way!"

"Yes, fucking way."

"How?" He shook his head, brilliantly incredulous, talking to himself as much as he was to her. "Maple, that's—that's huge! Did you talk to her agent? I'll give Daphne a call to thank her! You got the one and only Mrs. Dutrignon out of her lair! This is fucking fantastic!"

Maple didn't know how she'd done it since she hadn't. She could fabricate a story later, adding another thread to her tapestry of lies. She just needed time.

"Don't call," she said, grinning too broadly. "You know how Daphne is, she's very secretive. She doesn't want to make a big deal out of it."

"But it is a huge fucking deal! I'll call press and coms' right away, tell them the good news!"

Maple stood up from behind her desk, ready to explain why it'd be a terrible idea to tell anyone (probably something about Daphne's well-publicized paranoia for leaks? She'd figure out a nice way to frame it) when the office's door busted open.

"Mrs. Dufleuvier," Dave, one of the PAs, entered shaken and out of breath. He looked like toothpicks glued together by overpriced make-up and cheap cologne.

Maple held a grunt. "What?" Ermet made a step closer to the door and she waved at him. "Ermet, don't leave, we still have to talk about—"

The producer's phone rang. He helplessly gestured at it, then left to take the call.

Fuck.

Maple was already brainstorming ways she could stop Ermet from making Lie Number Thirty-Seven the definite end of her career.

She scribbled a few ideas on a piece of paper—the most extreme was obviously murder, and she wasn't there yet, (right?) so everything else was technically on the table. Kidnapping would work, but it wasn't a long-term solution.

She remembered Dave standing there.

"What?" she repeated while he looked at her, pure emptiness floating through his eyes.

"It's just to let you know I'm going to buy cigarettes. It's part of my self-care routine. If I don't smoke I will get triggered and potentially have a seizure."

Maple frowned, doubting the veracity of any of the words he'd just spoken. "Why are you telling me this? Where's the line producer? That's who is in charge of what you do, not me." When the production assistant didn't reply, with the same blank stare plastered on his face, she added, "Cruz. Where is Cruz?"

He shrugged.

"Alright, thank you for letting me know, Dave," Maple said.

The young man flashed blindingly white teeth. "I'm actually changing my name right now as I explore the depth and complexity of my gender identity. To validate me on this journey of self-proclamation, I would appreciate it if you refer to me with my chosen name."

He paused and blinked a lot, like an NPC glitching.

"Which is?" she asked.

"Semoule."

"Of course it is," Maple muttered as she watched him leave the office.

Now that he was gone, she could focus on the actual pile of shit she had to deal with. She wasn't sure how to stop Ermet from telling people, and she was out of options. The plan wasn't to bring infamous lone wolf Daphne Dutrignon back. Maple had hoped to use her potential return as bait so she could get some time to think.

Mrs. Dutrignon hadn't been seen in public since she'd left the show twenty years earlier after playing Adele Betterave (the youngest child of the eponymous Betterave family) for over fifty years. The daily soap had never recovered from her departure after the actress had decided to retire, and most critics pointed at her exit as the trigger for the show's current decline. Maple didn't disagree. She'd grown up watching Betteraves & Betrayals with her grandmother and nobody had successfully recaptured the essence of soap like Mrs. Dutrignon had.

Written, shot, and edited in-house by Ersweld Included, Bettraves & Betrayals was filmed in custom-made studios built in the early 1950s in Sobriquet Lake, a small Canadian town lost somewhere in British Columbia. The show was filmed five to six days a week, every week of the year except for a mandatory pause during the High Holidays when Maple was sequestered by her moms and force-fed krugel.

THUD!

The loud thud from outside the office rushed Maple to the large windows, her viewpoint into the vast stage.

The stage was deserted. She was all alone.

The thud came back.

Maple grabbed her keys, her phone, and went to investigate. It wasn't rare for her to be the only one in the studio, and she had fought a few wild raccoons who'd tried to set up shop in the sets before.

She reached the bottom of the flimsy wooden stairs that led to her office and grabbed a broom that was lying around. She'd take care of the raccoons first, then she'd deal with Ermet.

The room was drenched in shadows, her office's light shining bright and high in the dark. She looked for a switch and found one, but when her fingers engaged it nothing happened. The darkness around persisted.

So did the thud.

It grew louder and closer, then multiplied. If it were raccoons, she was about to confront an army. And if it wasn't a hord of wild animals then... what the fuck was it?

Maple used her phone's light to give herself a better chance at surviving whatever was causing the ruckus. She was small and thin, a broom as her only weapon, but she was determined to fight back.

"Who's there?" she started then stopped when her brain reminded her it could still be raccoons—and if it was, why was she attempting to talk to them? Raccoons don't speak.

A glance at her phone indicated she had no signal. "I'm armed and dialling 911!"

She babbled when she was afraid, she couldn't stop herself. It was a trait her mothers had long scolded her for.

"I have a gun," she declared when the thuds grew more insistent. "It's loaded and ready to shoot." Then, remembering that details sealed the deal, she added, "FN P90, slightly used, belonged to my great uncle who died in a jet-ski accident in Florida."

This possibly was Maple's last-ever Lie and it wasn't great.

The last thud she heard was sharp and followed by a strident screech. Right away, the distinct noise of breaking metal erupted above her head.