Paint the Toon Red

by A. J. Mayall

  “Hey, fox,” I heard his gruff voice answer.

  “Hey, Chance.”

  “Got any more of that paperwork for me?”

  “Yeah, I do. Listen, when you come over to pick it up, would you mind giving me a lift back to your place? I want to consult with you about some stuff.”

  “What? Are you wanting to do round two?”

  “Kinda, but you know my hands are tied against it. I had an idea, though. You still have all that drone stuff, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Could it be remotely piloted?”

  “Well, yeah. Why?”

  “Come on over, then. I’ve got an idea.”

  He grunted and turned off the phone. Shortly thereafter, I got a text: will be at your place in an hour.

  I looked at Kyle and showed him the text message. We quickly cleaned up our table and headed home.

  When we got there, Scratch was waiting at the door. He looked a little solemn. I tried not to glare but I’m sure I didn’t give him the happiest expression. He smiled when he saw me, though it may have been a response to my less-than-pleasant expression; after all, it was in his nature to cause me mischief or trouble.

  “Hey, Fairfax! Listen, I was wanting to talk to you about some stuff.”

  “Oh? Did you get tired of dealing with Pamela? How many people has she converted?”

  “About that…you know…I may have acted too rashly.”

  “You think so?”

  “Please, don’t be like that, okay? This is weird for me, too, but—”

  I reached behind my bowtie, pulled out my key, and let myself in. Kyle smiled down to the two of us and went to the bedroom while Scratch and I talked.

  “What do you want, Scratch?”

  He rested his forehead in his gloved right hand. “Let’s say that I’m starting to see some things and…I’m coming around to believing your story. What do I do with that information?”

  “Why? What’s up?”

  “She’s been talking with humans…humans I’m not really keen on. I’m not supposed to have heard some things…”

  “But?” I pressed.

  “I think she’s going to try another conversion here soon: a demonstration for the,” he snapped his fingers, trying to jog his memory, “the Delmontes?”

  “The Dellamortes?”

  “Yeah, that’s it!”

  “Okay…let’s see what we can do here. I can’t hurt her; copyright restricts me.”

  “Uh-huh…”

  “You can’t hurt her either since you’re full toon.”

  Scratch nodded. “Do we call the police?”

  “No; evil like that’s gotta get stamped out. I’ve got some ideas, but I don’t know if I can trust you, Scratch.”

  He looked hurt. “Hey, just because I was born to be your ultimate nemesis doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”

  “I understand that and I’m trying to get a grip on what our relationship is supposed to be, but I’m not ready for that yet.”

  He nodded. “Fair enough. What’s left?”

  “I got my friend Chance coming over, and I’ll probably be indebted to him for a good, long time just to hire his services.”

  Scratch went wide-eyed. “You mean the guy who had all the guns? B-but you’re not allowed to hurt her!”

  “True, but I’m not the one who’ll be hurting her. My specific instructions were I’m not allowed to raise a hand to hurt her. That doesn’t mean I can’t have someone else raise their hand to hurt her, and at no point did it say that I had to raise my hand to prevent her from being hurt.”

  Scratch shook his head. “I thought I was supposed to be the crafty one.”

  I shrugged. “It happens to the best of us. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to check something out.” My computer was already on, so I loaded up the Timber Titans livestream.

  I felt bad for Boost. When the human members of the team weren’t playing, which was the majority of the day, Boost was put on camera and he had to play almost every second that they weren’t.

  He seemed to enjoy himself, “pwning n00bs” and getting good tips and donations for the team. He wasn’t, however, allowed to compete.

  I quickly made an account under my new name and sent him a quick message while he was between matches, reintroducing myself.

  He responded that he remembered me and wondered what I needed and if the process had finally made me feel better. He mentioned that he stuck around a bit after we’d met, finalizing some stuff upstairs. I was way too out of it to even notice him.

  I asked if it would be at all possible for him to make it back down to San Jose, that I might need his help with something that involved a lot of guns.

  He told me someone else would be taking over the stream shortly, and that he could just hop on over through the screen.

  The team was based in Toronto. Physical distance didn’t seem to matter when it came to how far toons could travel between screens.

  By the time his turn finally ended, Chance had arrived. Scratch kept to himself off in a corner, while Boost popped out of my monitor and Chance got his copy of the paperwork.

  I knew I had to be careful with how I worded things around Boost. He was now a full-fledged toon, no longer Brandon Butler. The idea of him actually hurting people would go against every aspect of his core being, even though they were the people who hurt him the most.

  I did ask him a few questions though before we started. Mainly, what it would take for his copyright to be purged. He informed me that when the team disbands, he’s free to go. I felt glad for him; eSports was a big-money business. It struck me as being nothing more than a 20- to 30-year fad, but for all I knew, his team could last 150 years.

  I might be out of my contract with Snappy before he was out of his.

  Chance interrupted, “So, what do you guys want?”

  “You have a lot of…” I looked at Boost, “paintball guns, right?”

  “Yeah,” Chance said, getting the hint fast, “a lot of them.”

  “And some of your drone tech, it could be used to hold paintball guns, right?”

  Chance grinned, seeing where this was going. “Uh-huh.”

  “They could be operated remotely through a computer, right?”

  He chuckled and I saw Scratch look at me from the corner, a look of horror on his face.

  “Here’s what I’m thinking. Boost, would you mind being a backup for Chance and me having a paintball league. I thought that you might get a kick out of trying something a little bit different than your average fare.”

  “When were you thinking of doing it?”

  “Maybe tomorrow night.”

  Boost rubbed his neck. “I’m not sure.”

  Chance looked at me a little oddly and shrugged. “I suppose we can do something.”

  “Okay, then. Boost, if you want to head back to your house, we will continue this without you.”

  He smiled. “Actually, do you mind if I check out your system? There was a game I wanted to try out.”

  I nodded. “Feel free to log into your account if you want.”

  “Sweet! Thanks!”

  He got behind my screen and loaded up his profile on the streaming service.

  I laughed. “Your account is the official account of the team?”

  He nodded. “I’m the mascot. Part of my duty is to maintain it. I have to play the games when the other guys aren’t so that we’re running 24/7. While we do have some moderators, I’ve got to help clear out the chat now and then, like when it gets nasty.”

  “And wherever you log in, it—”

  “Wherever. Heck, I could stream right here.”

  I shook my head. “You said your teammates were streaming right now.”

  “Yeah, they’re really good. I’m so happy to be part of the team.”

  I cringed. Brandon Butler deserved better.

  My attention turned to Chance. “Do you have plans tomorrow night?”

  “I kinda do. Why?”<
br />
  “Can you put them on hold?”

  He shrugged. “I’m not sure. I mean, I know you’ve got your vendetta, but—”

  I held up a hand. “Listen, if this isn’t something you’re comfortable with…”

  “Nothing like that; I’ve been finding some really awesome information lately.”

  “That’s great, but I was hoping we could finish this thing once and for all tomorrow.”

  He grunted. “Yeah, I suppose we could try again.”

  “Awesome!”

  I open the door for Chance and he left, giving me one last look. Something was up, but I couldn’t tell what. Boost continued watching his livestreams, and Scratch walked over to me.

  “You’re going to kill her tomorrow.”

  “It’s one of my two options. I want out.”

  “But I talked to Snappy earlier today! He said that you like doing your job.”

  “I do like doing my job. It’s easy work, great pay, but Scratch…how do I put this? How would you feel if someone sold your copyright to a porn network and they expected you to perform on stage?”

  He made a disgusted face. “I’m G-rated. There’s no way I could—”

  “Let’s say it happened. Someone held your copyright and commanded you to perform sex acts. Would you be forced to do it?”

  He shivered. “Technically, yes, but no one would—”

  “That’s the kind of situation I’m in. I didn’t sell my copyright to Snappy. I was brought into this world against my will. My copyright was made and signed with my blood while I was tied to a table, okay? That copyright was given to Snappy. I never approved it, and I’ve been given two options. Pay Snappy half a million dollars, which, even on the salary he gives me, would take forever and a day to scrimp and save for, or wait for Pamela Blake to die. You tell me: what would you do to get out of the situation of someone forcing you to break your rating repeatedly on camera?”

  Scratch fidgeted. “I’d do everything in my power to get out, but there’s so little—”

  “Exactly. There’s so little that you can do…but I’m crafty like a fox.”

  CHAPTER 17

  I held Kyle all night. I was hard for me to get any sleep, not that I particularly needed it, but some habits are hard to break.

  Chance was acting odd, but I put it up to the fact that during the past month, I’d been getting way too used to being a toon and we’d grown a little distant. We weren’t besties, but he was my first real human friend after the transformation.

  My guess was he was tired of waiting for me to finally stumble across the information he needed, considering most of the stuff I had was decades old.

  Later that night, I contacted Scratch. I just wanted to check in on him and make sure he was doing okay. I was starting to understand the bond between a toon and his foil. It wasn’t quite a friendship. He wasn’t an enemy, he was a thorn in my side, and I had gotten him into this. He wasn’t happy with what I was planning but, as far as I knew, he hadn’t warned Pamela.

  Kyle had gone off to work that day and I made sure everything was in order on my computer before calling Chance to pick me up. He’d taken about an hour to show up and I brought what paperwork I had with me.

  He was quiet, so I broke the silence first. “What’s been going on with you? I know I haven’t really been in touch aside from letting you know when I’ve got more paperwork updates.”

  Chance shrugged. “Still no luck in finding Vic. I appreciate all the help, but—”

  I nodded. “You don’t know if you can trust me.”

  He looked down and nodded with a sorrowful gaze. “That copyright’s got you by the balls.” He winced when he said it. “Sorry…I know that’s a tender subject for you. I work in the shadows, and should the cops come by and Snappy puts that copyright in their hands or he orders you to tell the cops everything you know…”

  “It scares me, too. I’m not happy about this either.” I smiled when I looked through the folder. “Fun fact, though: this is some of the older stuff, and I actually found Snappy’s copyright in here.”

  He grinned. “I could take you over to Snappy’s place. You could hold that and tell him to—”

  I shook my head. “No, he already owns my copyright; I can’t just hold his copyright, too. He’d have to give it to me.

  “Didn’t you—”

  “It’s complicated. The person who technically brought me into the world gave my copyright to him. So, it’s kind of a weird starting point loophole. I don’t fully understand it myself, but it’s not like I can just grab every single one of these papers, go to the middle of Times Square, hold them above my head, and command a toon army to do my bidding. There has to be a willful transaction.”

  Chance nodded. “Okay. What’s your plan?”

  “The plan is for you to go onto the property tonight and kick a lot of ass. I was hoping to set up a drone and put some weapons on it so Boost could give you some support.”

  “It’s not a bad idea, but these aren’t those sort of components; they’re more for augmenting a person.”

  I groaned. “Damn it.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll come up with another plan.”

  When we got back to his warehouse, I helped him load up supplies and lots of guns. With everything loaded, I logged on to his accounts on the dark web and checked for new contracts for him, the sort of thing I did when I was staying there shortly after my transformation. It was nice getting into old habits.

  I didn’t like the business of killing people, but I was kinda good at it.

  Chance held up a mini-camera and said, “How about I wear this and you can monitor my progress. If things go bad, then you’ll at least know to call the cops and have them come out and investigate.”

  I nodded. It was the least I could do.

  We waited until nightfall. Chance was outfitted in black: suit, boots, gloves, night vision goggles, the whole shebang.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?”

  “You’d be too much of a hazard. I have to look out for you and you can’t do any damage.”

  I looked down and saw the bare spot between my legs. “Yeah, you can definitely say I’ve been neutered.”

  Chance patted my shoulder. “Don’t be like that. You’ll be okay. Anyway, once I take her out, I’m going to go through her private inventory and see if I can find information on Vic. I’m fairly certain that he was converted, and, if anything, I can at least take a photo of the evidence. It’ll be easier to track him down once I know what he looks like.” He rubbed his head. “You said you can’t just take someone’s copyright and hold him to it.”

  “Right. You have to have some sort of transaction.”

  “Can one copyright holder sell it to another?”

  “Probably. It might be frowned upon, but rules are weird all over the place. I keep hearing that the Japanese toons are a little different, but I’m not sure.”

  He nodded and went off to his car while I sat and waited at the computer.

  Thirty minutes passed before I got a text that he was behind the estate. About ten minutes after that, I saw the camera feed go live. He hopped the fence and made the slow track toward Pamela’s guesthouse. Everything appeared to be in the clear.

  He snuck around to the back door, opened it, and slipped inside. He checked the upstairs and whispered into his lapel mic, “It looks like Pamela actually isn’t in the house.”

  A terrible scream echoed from the basement.

  He cocked his gun and proceeded downstairs. The hallway was dark and all the doors were shut. The far room where the conversions took place had a light on under the door. Chance took his time getting to it.

  He leaned up against it, twisted the knob, and pushed himself in. The next thing I saw was Scratch belly-laughing and pointing at the camera.

  “Is Fairfax watching? See, this is what I do your plans! Heh heh heh!”

  He pulled a mallet from his hammerspace and slammed it into the cam
era. My feed went dark, but I still heard audio. Other doors opened and guns were fired before the sound went out.

  “Fuck!” I muttered.

  I texted Scratch: What the hell do you think you’re doing?

  He quickly responded: toons don’t kill humans, they don’t even participate in that thing. I’m doing you a favor.

  I grunted. The camera feed was still out, but I got an idea when I saw the components for the drones.

  I hopped on to the live streaming app and sent Boost a message, asking if he could join me. I was a little busy and I had to gather some supplies before going home.

  He asked if I wanted him to hop over to where I was and help me gather stuff up and then we could hop to my place together.

  I informed him I didn’t have access to my car, to which he responded, “Why don’t you just go through the screen? It’s easier that way.”

  I told him I didn’t know how especially since I had stuff to carry with me.

  He simply responded with “LOL n00b!” There was a flash from my phone and a gloved hand came out of it. He pulled himself through the tiny screen, landing on his pear-shaped behind and shaking stars out of his vision.

  “Hey there,” he said in his chipper, semi-whistly voice. “Whatcha doin’?”

  He looked around at all the guns and equipment. I seized up, but a big grin popped across his face.

  “Dude, these are the coolest, most realistic paint guns I’ve ever seen!”

  I grinned. Jackpot. “I wanted to test something out and was wondering if you could help me with it,” I said, gesturing to some of the aim assistance gear.

  “Like what?”

  “I’m not quite sure how this works, but I’ve got the schematics and—”

  “Oh, I see what you’re saying,” he said as I tried to fit my noodly arms into the aim assisters. “Kind of like a VR suit, in a way.”

  I nodded.

  “Sure, I can help you! I’ve done a few things like that for one of the guys.”

  He found various items, including a tactical belt and harness that I put a bunch of the guns on. I had both of my arms decked out with the exoskeleton aim assisters.

  “How does this work? What do you need?”

  I got one of the mobile cams and put it on my shoulder for the time being. “What we’re trying to do is a first-person shooter but with paintball.”