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Broadcast: Chapter 0

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Hayley Knightley let out an exhausted gasp as she crested the hill. “Go to Hawaii, they said,” she panted to herself. “It’ll be fun, they said.”

To be fair, they were mostly right. Hawaii was beautiful and a lot of her expenses were paid for by the news network. But it was also hot. Very, very hot.

It was not any easier out in the thick of the Kauai jungle. Hayley had one day left on her trip and wanted to use it to report on a rumored ceremony that took place on Hawaii’s oldest island. That meant climbing through the hills and trees to get to the site of an extinct volcano, its ancient expulsions of ash fertilizing much of the island’s plant life and serving as a symbol of fertility in general.

But after walking through the trees and vines in the summer heat for a while, Hayley regretted coming up with this idea. Sweaty strands of her bright red hair kept sticking to her forehead or her bangs would droop down and catch her in the eye. Her thick green “reporter” shirt was wet and shrinking, clinging to her body. Hayley was slim and tall but not exactly athletic so the hike was leaving her exhausted.

“You…doin’ okay, ma’am?” a freelance camera operator named Ricky she’d hired from Kapa’a asked. He dabbed some sweat off of his shaved-bald head but otherwise was doing fine.

“Yes, I’m okay,” Hayley groaned, pulling out a water bottle and gulping a big mouthful. As she bent back to drink, her shirt rode up even more of her body, leaving her tan stomach half-exposed. Her bra was starting to pinch and she could feel more sweat developing under her cleavage, but as a naturally busty woman, she was used to that at least. “Are we going the right way?”

“Yep, it’s over the next hill,” Ricky said, pointing ahead of them. Hayley tried not to groan out loud. Another hill? “But, um, like I said, we might not be able to get in. Even I’ve never seen this ceremony and I’m as an authentic a Hawaiian as you can find.”

“After all this, I’m getting in,” Hayley scoffed, lifting one long leg and digging into the hillside, forcing herself forward.

The life of a travelling news reporter seemed like a dream job. Hayley was set to take the place of another reporter at her network, Program Global News Television, or PGNT, and was mostly only sent around the United States nowadays. However, it was not as glamorous as her vignettes on television looked. Long hours flying around the country, exhausting treks to sometimes remote locations, and tense arguments with people who weren’t comfortable with TV cameras.

Still, Hayley got a kick out her job and she got to see and do things most people never got to. Plus, she got a free trip to Hawaii where she had time to surf and swim in the ocean. Who could argue with that? Hayley knew she was initially only given a shot on TV because of her good looks but she was smart and determined and wanted to prove that she had something substantive to give to the network in her reporting. Then, she could take the top slot as an international reporter and shoot from…anywhere. Italy, South Africa, China, New Zealand, anywhere. The world could be hers.

Another half hour or so of hiking and Hayley saw the massive dark stone of the extinct volcano before her. She sighed and rested on her knees while she tried to catch her breath. “Okay Ricky, you got the camera ready?”

“Ms. Knightley, I still don’t think-”

“Hey, let me worry about that,” Hayley smiled back at him. “They get mad at the reporter, not the camera guy, trust me.” That wasn’t always the case but there was no point in getting Ricky worried. She turned on her hip-cinctured microphone and tested the levels with Ricky. “Let’s go.”

She walked around the corner and could hear some music and commotion down through the trees. Hayley eyed it a little and tried to decide the best place to stand for the shot before turning to Ricky.

“We are here on Kauai, Hawaii’s oldest island, where we can see one of the island’s oldest ceremonies. Its origins go back before any records in Hawaiian history and even most indigenous communities in the archipelago know nothing about-”

Hayley noticed a worried look on Ricky’s face as he moved his eyes away from the lens. Hayley turned around to see what caught his attention. Behind Hayley was a Hawaiian woman with dark brown skin, a few colorful paint markers on her cheeks, forehead, and nose, some bead jewelry and nothing else. Her naked breasts and butt were out for the world to see and there was a lot of it because she was also pregnant.

“I’m sorry, but you will need to leave,” the pregnant woman said gently to Hayley. She had long black hair, tied together with a kind of crown made from vines. “This is a private ceremony.”

“I understand but this is a news report,” Hayley said, flashing her laminated badge. “I’m from PGNT. Do you watch? We’re the top-rated news network.” They were, in fact, the third-ranked cable news network, but employees were told to say they were number one overall because of a loophole where, for some reason, they beat all other news at 4 AM on Wednesdays. “Do you watch?”

“I don’t but…this is a cultural celebration we hold very sacred,” the woman sighed, putting her hands on her wide hips. Hayley looked over the pregnant woman’s size and gulped. She had to be a day or so from giving birth. Hayley would have compared her to an over-ripe coconut but she didn’t think coconuts really got “ripe.” But this woman was just as round.

“Look, I have been walking for miles now just to film this and technically this is federal land so I’m not going to stop,” Hayley say, side-stepping the woman. “Now please, you can either give an interview to frame this story on your own terms or leave me to my work.”

The pregnant woman narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips, clearly growing less patient with Hayley. “I have tried to be polite with you, but-”

“I’ve tried to be polite too,” Hayley sighed, gesturing to Ricky to come forward. He started filming again and Hayley smiled at the camera. “Even most indigenous communities in the archipelago know nothing about this primitive fertility ritual.”

“Primitive?” the pregnant woman shouted, making Ricky jump from surprise. “This goes back before any ancient Greeks knew how to write. Before people migrated to the South of Africa. Before the Chinese even had the concept of a dynasty. And you dare disturb it and insult us?” She marched forward, pushing Hayley back with her belly.

“Lady, back off,” Hayley frowned. “I’m trying to do my job.”

“You want to experience our fertility ceremony so badly? Fine,” the woman said, muttering a few words and then spitting on Hayley’s stomach.

“Hey!”

“There, you got what you came for,” the pregnant woman sneered, marching back down to the small gathering of men and women below.

“S-should I keep filming?” Ricky asked.

“Nah, I’ll dub over the rest and use some B-roll of the jungle,” Hayley muttered, turning around and heading down the hill. “I think my trip is over.”


Back at the hotel, Hayley was looking over the footage from the memory card and making notes of what to use and what not to use. All of the shots of the naked, angry pregnant woman were obvious no-gos.

Even if they blurred out her breasts (and there was a lot of them to blur out – each nipple was nearly the size of a drink coaster), it wouldn’t fly on PGNT and she didn’t like airing footage of someone being mad at her. Especially not a woman who looked like she was one more stressful sentence away from triggering labor. Angering a pregnant woman into giving birth was not a good look.

Still, Hayley found herself watching those clips over and over again. She may have been obnoxious but the pregnant woman was strangely beautiful. Hayley attributed it to the “pregnant glow” and its allure. Hayley had thought about being a mother herself from time to time but with her constant travels, it didn’t seem likely. And she was serially single, which didn’t help. There was a one-night-stand here and there but she wouldn’t want to carry any of those guys’ kids…and the one-nighters with women didn’t tend to result in children either.

A ring from Hayley’s hotel phone snapped her out of it and she walked over, still feeling her muscles burning, particularly in her abdomen. “N’hello?” she said with a yawn as she picked up the phone.

“You’re yawning? You’re hours ahead of us. It’s still the afternoon where you are!” said the voice of her editor and direct supervisor, Derek Nunez.

“What can I say? It’s been a tiring day,” Hayley sighed. “And I feel a little queasy.”

“You’re probably dehydrated. Or you’ve caught some exotic jungle virus,” Derek said.

“Ha ha,” Hayley said in a very unamused tone. “I’ve edited most of the footage so it’ll be ready to go when I get back, more or less.”

“Sounds good. Your red eye flight back is soon, isn’t it?” Derek said. Hayley could hear some clicks on his end as he checked the calendar on his computer. 

“Yeah, I’ll be ready to go,” Hayley said, yawning again. “Ugh, hopefully I can sleep on the plane.”

“Better than you falling asleep in a meeting,” Derek said. “Did you have fun?”

“Sure,” Hayley shrugged. “Hey…have you heard anything about the international reporting job?”

She heard silence on the other end. “It’s…complicated. No clear answers yet,” Derek said. “But a good report from Hawaii will always help.”

“I’ll bet,” Hayley scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Okay, I’m going to go get ready for my flight. See you tomorrow I guess.” She hung up and looked at her suitcase laying open on the bed. Hayley inspected her sweaty shirt and pulled out something fresh. As she struggled with the buttons, Hayley let out a grunt and sucked in her stomach, barely getting the buttons connected. “Must still be sweaty,” she said to herself.

At the airport, she clumsily made it through the security line and boarding, staggering through with a fancy juice bottle in one hand a few fast food burgers in the other. A sudden craving diverted her attention and after her trek through the jungle, she felt she deserved it.

“Hello, Ms. Knightley,” the clerk said as she scanned her boarding pass. “Here for a report?”

Hayley grinned. A viewer recognized her. That didn’t happen as much as she would like. “Sure did. Working in Hawaii. What could be better?”

“Well I hope you have a good flight,” the clerk nodded with a smile. Hayley boarded the plane and put away her luggage, struggling with her seat belt as it dug into more of her stomach than she’d expected. It was a very tight fit.

“Can’t wait to get home and shower in my own house…work is making me stressed and bloated,” she muttered to herself, pushing the crumbled-up burger wrappers off her lap and closing her eyes to sleep as the plane took off, taking her back home.

The first installment in a bit of a writing experiment between myself and daboobz. We worked together to create a long story arc for "The Preg-Transferer" and now we're going to try something similar over here.

Make sure you watch daboobz on DA because we're going to be going back and forth chapter-wise. Should be fun.

First: buddy, you're here already
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