by Simon Archer
“How the hell did he get up there without anyone seeing him?” Kennedi hissed.
“He must’ve taken advantage of the standing ovation to cut through the room,” I told her. We all knew he had planned to do something tonight to hurt all of our businesses, but to just jump up on stage was a bolder move than any of us expected. My mind started racing. I leaned over and whispered my plan in Kennedi’s ear. Then I rounded my chair, moved over to Charlie, and put my hand on his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” He looked perplexed and anxious. His wife was on stage with a violent, calculating asshole.
“I’m going to beat him at his own game,” I told him. “Don’t worry about Leah, I’ll get her out of there, but I need you to keep Ellie here.” Charlie looked at me, confused. I just rolled my eyes at him. “This particular audience doesn’t need to see Ellie mad.”
“Aha,” Charlie said as it sank in why I wanted Ellie contained. “Alright. Go.”
Our table was already close to the stage, so it was easy to slip off to the side and climb the stage steps. I tucked myself behind a curtain and waited. Timing was critical for what I needed to do. Trevor’s voice grated at my every nerve as I stood there.
“You’re beloved UsForThem Foundation, and Leah Lindy, is leaving a few things out that I think you should know about,” Trevor told the crowd. “How would you feel about opening your pocketbooks to a foundation that supports a company that turns perfectly good and happy CGs into vegetables who can’t even speak their own names?” The room went completely silent.
“What the hell are you talking about?” a voice from the back of the room yelled.
“I’m talking about this!” Trevor yelled into the microphone and then turned toward the projector screen. A video of Krysta, unable to speak or move, started to play. A woman’s voice off-screen narrated as Krysta was put through a series of tests to see if any of her systems were completely functional. The voice on the video was Leila’s. The crowd cringed, and some looked away as the video rolled on. When the screen went dark, Trevor stepped to the front of the stage.
“This poor CG was taken in for a simple modification,” Trevor spoke angrily. “She went to Vice Grip Solutions for that mod, and that is what ended up happening to her! Here’s the kicker, ladies and gentlemen, UsForThem is associated with Vice Grip Solutions! Leah Lindy’s own husband is an investor!”
I saw Leah start to go back on stage to shut Trevor up, but I motioned for her to stop. I needed Trevor to get out all that he felt would tear us down.
“I can stop him!” Leah mouthed across the stage. I held my hand up and shook my head exaggeratedly. She stepped back and looked at me with a cautious, ‘I hope you know what the hell you are doing’ look.
Meanwhile, Trevor droned on. “Oh, we aren’t done yet! Did you know that one of the main investors in Vice Grip Solutions also owns part of Belavi restaurant? The same restaurant that has prepared your meal this evening. Hold on to your stomachs, folks, but I have proof that the food delivery received for the meal you have here tonight was marked as contaminated with salmonella bacteria.”
The room erupted in near panic. Everyone started looking at their plates, and some even gagged. I was hoping they would hold on for just a second longer.
“Come on, Trevor,” I whispered to myself. “Hurry it up.”
Thankfully, he didn’t disappoint.
“Now folks, I know it is hard to hear, and see, that the people you thought you were helping, the ones you thought shared your same compassion, are complete frauds, and actually dangerous. But that is why I am up here bringing this to your attention!” He sounded a bit like a televangelist shouting at the crowd. “I am aligned with a company that wants to end all of this intertwined industry cheating and deceit. We want to end the torture of innocent CGs just looking for modifications, end unfair contracting for things like this event. We want to make the world better for CGs, and for you.”
Trevor paused and lowered his voice. “We will need you to decide that you want that too. I will be meeting in the back, with those of you who now see that UsForThem is a sham, and so are the businesses it partners with! Thank you!”
Trevor had done a thorough job in his attempt to smear the names of our businesses. The crowd, like so many do, started to doubt their loyalties. Now was my only chance to bring the bastard to his knees.
I waited for him to put the microphone back on the stand and turn to walk off stage. He was headed straight for Leah. I knew if he made it anywhere near her, I’d be dealing with getting Charlie off him. I ran out onto the stage and grabbed the microphone before Trevor had a chance to get that far.
“Hold up there, Trevor!” I shouted into the mic loud enough so that there would be eyes on nothing else but me.
Trevor spun around to face me. His face showed confusion at first, but then his mouth dropped open with surprise. He stayed where he was, motionless and silent. I looked him dead in the eyes.
“I have a few things I would ALSO like to inform our generous patrons of this evening.”
Trevor’s face turned red, and he took a step toward me with his head lowered, as though he was going to charge. He must have realized that he was still visible to the audience, though, because he thought better of it and stopped. I acted like he was completely dismissable and continued.
“Ladies, and gentlemen, my name is Clark Watkins,” I started. “I am the founder of Vice Grip Solutions, which I’ll talk to you about here in just a minute. I want to start by asking you to take a look at the plates in front of you.” I waited a moment while the confused patrons in the room glanced at the plates of food at their tables before continuing. “What you will notice is that what you have been served is NOT what was on the original invitation to this event. Why? Because Trevor was right about something, the shipment of food that was supposed to be served tonight was contaminated.”
A murmur went through the crowd, and I pressed on.
“What Trevor neglected to tell you is that he is the one who tampered with the food order so that it wouldn’t be any good by the time Belavi received it, which was yesterday. You see, Belavi orders their event food to be delivered last minute so that they can bring you the absolute best dishes you’ve ever tasted. So, when their shipment was unusable, the owners crafted new meals for you out of local food they could get last minute. I ask you, who here tasted anything wrong with the food?”
People started shaking their heads, shrugging their shoulders, and asking their tablemates if they tasted anything wrong.
“It was delicious!” a man yelled from the back of the room.
“Yeah! I want the recipe,” a woman hollered.
“Exactly!” I yelled. “Rest assured, your dinner is fresh, handcrafted, and designed to give you a real food experience! Now, something else I want to address that our friend, Trevor, over there mentioned. UsForThem.” I paused for effect. “Ladies, and gentlemen, you know Leah Lindy. You’ve seen the good work she has done with this foundation. I want you to ask yourself, do you really believe that she would align herself with less-than-reputable businesses?”
“What about the vegetable cat girl?” a voice hollered from the middle of the room.
“Ahh, Vice Grip Solutions. I’m glad you asked,” I said. I looked sideways at Trevor. He was shaking with rage but couldn’t do anything about it without the entire room seeing him. “For those of you who don’t know my story, VGS was born out of a desire to keep big corporations, like Omnicorp, out of your private business. Currently, our one service is to modify CGs that have been designed to literally spy on you. Now, our friend Trevor over here showed you a video. In that video, you saw a cat girl who had lost functionality, and he told you it was due to a modification my staff did. Well, I have another video to show you.”
I stepped aside as an image went up on the screen. The video was recorded by Krysta. Leila had no idea Krysta was recording the horror she was being put through. Both Leila and Trevor were on the video, torturing her. The audienc
e gasped. Some of the women started crying. Before it got too bad, I motioned to the audio/video booth to cut the video.
“That was just a clip of some of the things that my CG, Krysta, was put through at the hands of Trevor, and his sidekick, Leila, in order to try to deceive you tonight.”
“Where did you get that?” Trevor hissed across the stage at me.
I looked at him and smiled innocently. I wanted nothing more than to taunt him, but I had to maintain composure for my audience.
“I have one more thing to show you before I let you go to make your decision about whether you would like to meet with Trevor or not.” I looked to my left, just offstage, and saw Rosie and Krysta standing with Kennedi. I nodded at her, and she slowly led them on stage. Some of the people in the crowd recognized Krysta and started to clap for her.
Krysta stepped to the microphone that I had replaced on the stand. “Thank you, everyone, for coming to this dinner tonight. Needless to say, it’s turning out to be a bit more than you bargained for in the entertainment department, isn’t it?” Her voice was lighthearted and happy. “I won’t take much of your time, but I wanted to set something straight. As you saw from the video, the very person who is trying to pass off my damage as being a commonplace practice at VGS is actually the person who did the damage. The only reason I am here today is that those brilliant minds at VGS devised a way for me to be functional while they create a more permanent fix for the torture that was inflicted on me. I owe my continued existence to VGS.”
Krysta smiled at me and stepped away from the microphone. To my satisfaction, I saw the audience start to glare at Trevor. They’d whisper angrily and point in his direction. I plucked the mic out of its holder and put it to my mouth.
“There is one more introduction I would like to make tonight,” I started. I looked over at Rosie, then back out into the room. I was getting ready to tell them her story when I felt a hand on my shoulder. The hand was Rosie’s. I looked into her eyes and saw that she had the strength to tell her own story. I handed the microphone to her and stepped aside once more.
“Hello, my name is Rosie.” Her voice was tentative but much louder and more confident than I’d ever heard it. “I was present when Trevor’s friend, Leila, dumped Krysta in an alley. I was there because I had scraped my way back into the city after being dumped in a landfill.”
The room went silent. Rosie’s statement was one of those that people don’t know how to respond to.
“What I want you all to know is that, even though I was in a landfill, and a dark, dumpster-filled alley, UsForThem took me in without even knowing my name. And I made it to UsForThem because Clark found me and brought me to them.”
Rosie tipped her head up to look at the A/V booth, and a picture of her appeared. On one side was an image of what she looked like when Kennedi, and I found her. The other side was plain white. Rosie handed me the microphone as she walked to stand in front of the blank part of the screen. She made herself the live ‘after’ picture.
A moment of silence fell over the room. Then the audience erupted. They clapped and yelled and cheered for her. She blushed. I could tell that public speaking was the last thing she wanted to be doing, but she made it through what she had to say. She walked back to Krysta and helped her off the stage. I was alone with the microphone once more.
“There is one last bit of information that Trevor left out of his well-polished, take-down speech,” I said, sarcastically. “He works for Omnicorp. The reason he is here, filling your head with lies, is because he knows that Vice Grip Solutions is positioned to take over a very important materials contract that his company wants. He thought that by discrediting VGS, and everyone we align with, he could eliminate his company’s competition, but what he didn’t know, is that he’d already failed. Why? Here, let me show you.” I spun around and held my arm up to the dark screen behind me. It lit up to show Isamu Sato on the other side of a video call. The members of the crowd didn’t know who he was, but Trevor did, and he gasped audibly when he saw Isamu’s face.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Isamu addressed the room via video. “To be clear, my company, Mirai Gurasu, is ending its contract with Omnicorp because I could no longer, in good conscience, associate with those so lacking in moral character. I have, however, decided to partner with Vice Grip Solutions to create new and innovative technologies, as well as work to bring ethics and honor back to the cat girl industry.” Isamu paused as if to make sure he’d said all he wanted to. He sat up a little straighter and said, “That is all. Goodbye.”
Straightforward and no bullshit, that is what I liked about the man. He bowed to the camera, and the feed was cut.
I stepped back to the middle of the stage and looked over the audience. They were whispering amongst themselves. Some looked confused, and others looked excited. I cleared my throat, and the room quieted before I addressed them once more.
I pointed a finger at Trevor and said, “After all you’ve seen here tonight, after everything you’ve heard, my question to you all is, are you going to let that man sway you?”
I barely got the words out before the audience roared with shouts calling for Trevor to be hauled away and locked up. Suggestions for how he should be punished for his actions got pretty carried away, but in the end, the consensus was the same. Trevor was out and hated.
I put the microphone back on the stand and walked toward Trevor. He was frozen with rage, and I could see the panic in his eyes. His eyes were darting around as he looked for a way off the stage and out of the venue. Kennedi, Rosie, and Krysta were on one side of the stage, and Leah was on the other. He decided that Leah would be easier to get through. He spun around and charged at her.
Leah had nowhere to go as he got closer to her. An instant before he would have run into her, a figure flashed across the stage and grabbed him by the arm. In one swift motion, he was spun around, his feet were kicked out from under him, and he landed face-down on the stage floor. Standing over him, holding his arm behind his back, was Rosie. She only had one hand on him, but he lay motionless.
Charlie, and Macy, were on stage, next to Leah, by the time Trevor was downed. None of us could believe our eyes. Tiny, shy, quiet, terrified, Rosie, had just stopped a man three-times her size from hurting Leah. The audience gasped, then cheered for her. She stepped back and took a wide stance, facing the crowd. She stood up straight and flexed the arm that had been holding Trevor down. The look in her eyes was nothing but pure strength, more than any of us expected from her. The screams from the crowd grew and didn’t let up until she left the stage.
“That’s him.” I hear Bev’s voice behind Charlie. He moved to the side, pulling Leah with him, and two uniformed officers walked on stage. They approached Rosie, and she let go of Trevor’s arm, but he didn’t move. One of the officers started to reach down to pick him up, but Rosie called back to him from the side of the stage.
“You’ll need to wait another forty-five seconds before doing that.
The officer looked at her, confused. He dismissed what she told him and started to reach down again.
“Dammit, Jake! Don’t you listen?” Bev shouted at the officer as she hurried over. “That girl right there can redirect electrical energy with the touch of her hand. If she tells you not to touch something, there is a good chance it is because she doesn’t want you to get electrocuted!”
The officer shrunk under Bev’s scolding and pulled his hand back. I caught Bev’s eye, and she walked over.
“Friends of yours?” I laughed.
“Well, it seems I need to keep my cop friends around if I’m going to be hanging out with you!” she joked.
Forty-five seconds later, the officers hauled Trevor away. Much to Leah’s surprise, none of her guests left. Not a single one. A few minutes of confusion, and one reassuring speech later, and Leah’s Gala event moved forward as though nothing had happened. I helped Rosie, and Ellie, get Krysta to a car that was waiting outside to take them back to Charlie’s penthous
e. I had brought the video she recorded with me but had no idea she’d made arrangements to show up and tell her own tale. It was risky on her part but, when I told her it was a chance she shouldn’t have taken, she just shrugged her shoulders.
“There was a guy who paid a penny and punched a guy out to get me out of the hell I was in once. Walking onto a stage was the least I could do to repay him,” Krysta said with a smile.
“You don’t owe me anything,” I replied.
“I know,” she said. She winked at me and carefully got into the car.
The event lasted another three hours. Leah ended up raising over twenty-five thousand dollars off the silent auction, and Belavi scored four event contracts from guests who loved the food. I spoke with nearly everyone in the room, answering their questions about CG modifications and the benefits. By the time the last guest had filed out, all of us humans were exhausted. Bev, Leah, Charlie, Theo, Macy, and I plopped down in our chairs at our VIP table, each with a drink, and looked around the now-empty room. Kennedi joined us. Theo put his feet up on Bev’s lap.
“Y’all did a great job at getting that punk out of your hair,” Theo said happily. “Hey, Clark. How did you get the video to play that you wanted?”
“I had a little birdie in the A/V room load it up before the event, in case we needed it.” I shot him a crooked smile.
“Who is the little birdie?” Bev wanted to know. “Anyone we know?”
“As a matter-of-fact, yes,” I said. “It was Sally.”
Kennedi’s ears perked up, and she started looking around. “Where is she?” Kennedi always looked forward to seeing Sally.
“She’s already gone. She wanted me to convey her apologies for not making it to the house-raising.” I rolled my eyes and smiled. Theo took his feet off his wife’s lap and sat up.
“Sally is a good one to have in your corner!” Theo said.
“I think all of you are good to have in my corner!” Leah added. “I can’t tell you all how much I appreciate what you did. When Trevor got up on that stage, I didn’t have a single clue how I was going to pull my audience from the brink of walking out.”