Chapter 74: Performance Evaluation (6)
"Just be honest, Michael. Who’s the leader of your team? Ari or Caleb?"
"...it’s Caleb, sir, but Ari offers a lot of input and helps guide us with advice."
"Very good. You may step back." Michael politely stepped back in line with the other contestants, and Larry continued speaking, this time directly toward Caleb.
"Caleb, at this point, I hope that you know what you did wrong. Usually, we as judges don’t interfere with how teams run themselves, but clearly, and I think my fellow judges would agree with me, it’s not working. I don’t think you’re the right one for a leadership position, so we’re stripping it from you since you clearly didn’t want to claim it or the responsibility that comes with it."
"But-!"
Larry Jackson ignored him and turned his head to look at the rest of the group.
"Moving on. D-Class Team (2), this entire thing, from your team structure, to your choice in leaders, to your current digestion of the song, to the attitude displayed now, has been quite disgraceful and honestly pathetic. You all need to go back to the drawing board and come up with a fix. And fast. Because the way this looks, you’re currently the worst ones here."
As the team looked saddened, Larry finally turned to face Ari.
"And finally, Congratulations Ah-ri-el. Since you were nominated twice and seem to be doing the behind-the-scenes work, you’re now the team leader unless you would like to reject the offer?"
Just as Ari was about to shake his head no, NOVA filled his vision with a blue screen.
[Ding!]