Geek Actually Season 1 Omnibus

by Cathy Yardley

  Elli: Guys, let’s just take a breath. We need to help Taneesha, and arguing certainly won’t.

  Taneesha: I appreciate that, El. But you can’t help me. Apparently, no one can.

  Aditi: There must be something.

  Taneesha: What? I’ve gone through the whole “you’re being harassed” playbook. HR suggested it was a disgruntled ex-boyfriend or some harmless Internet trolls. Because harmless is a box of shit being special delivered to your front door.

  Taneesha: I really appreciate your concern, but unfortunately, we all live thousands of miles apart. We can’t have sleepovers or safety pop-ins every day.

  Taneesha: Besides, I do have my family here. Bobby’s taking good care of me.

  Elli: I do wish we could be there. If I could afford it, I’d fly there right now.

  Aditi: I could be there tomorrow, Neesha.

  Taneesha: No, Deet, it’s fine. But if there’s anything you can do, I will ask.

  Michelle: Promise?

  Taneesha: Promise. Listen, I’m behind in everything today thanks to those WoW idiots. I’ve gotta run.

  Aditi: Stay in contact, will ya? I want a check-in twice a day.

  Taneesha: All right. Later.

  ADITI

  Aditi pushed back from the computer, rubbing her eyes. She was getting some serious screen fatigue lately, yet accomplishing very little. For a few days there at Booklovers Con, she hadn’t wanted to gouge Michelle’s eyes out. Sure, she was still Michelle, overly focused and a little annoying, but she was also the fun friend again. Aditi had figured it was just what they needed to get their non-working relationship back on track. But now that they’d been back in the real world for a few weeks, it was bad again. For the fiftieth time this week, Aditi wondered if she should have sold her book to a different publisher. Not that Faraday wasn’t the home she wanted, but just to preserve her friendship with Miche.

  Fucking blog posts. Who wanted to read this shit, anyway? There had been tens, dozens of them by now. Weren’t people sick of hearing her name, reading the same drivel over and over again? Because she was sure as shit sick of writing it. Aditi could work on the sequel, but that was no better. Where do you even start with a story you never wanted to write in the first place? She’d been escaping a little too much into the sanctuary of Cuddlebug lately, but even the sheen of crazy monkey sex was starting to wear off.

  Meanwhile, she couldn’t get Taneesha out of her head. How were these things happening in 2017? She wanted to believe it was because the country had elected a misogynist windbag to the Oval Office, but this stuff was going on long before then. It was like the whole world had gone insane and the root of everything was the Internet. That’s where things went wrong—misinformation and the resonating chamber of nutbag, like-minded opinions. Aditi’s brain drifted for a moment to a story idea where it turned out Wi-Fi was actually corrupting people’s brains and leading to acts of aggression. But she already had a book, and that particular idea was just tinfoil hat enough to be believed by some people—and she didn’t need that kind of heat. The last thing Aditi wanted was to spend 2018 or ’19 being followed around by conspiracist acolytes.

  Her phone rang. Glancing down, Aditi saw it was Michelle and groaned. If this was about work, she would have taken a telemarketer or an IRS scammer at this point. But if it was about Neesha, it was a necessary conversation. And if it was about the party Michelle had gone to, Aditi could talk all day. She’d been dying for details, but Slack definitely wasn’t the place to bring it up.

  “Hey, Michelle,” she said. “Can you believe this shit about Neesha? There has to be a way to help her.”

  “What?” came Michelle’s obviously distracted reply. “Oh, yeah, it’s horrific.”

  So this call was definitely about writing. She knew all Michelle’s moods and tones at this point. Worried about Taneesha, Michelle would be angry and raging. Excited about the Fetlife party, Michelle’s voice would be nervous and fluttery. Flat and slightly irritated meant she was displeased with someone’s work, and lately that someone had been Aditi.

  She had thought her blood pressure couldn’t go any higher, and yet here was the throbbing and pounding in her ears. It was especially annoying that their good friend was in trouble and Michelle couldn’t even focus on that for ten minutes. “I can’t write any faster,” Aditi said automatically. “If that’s why you’re calling.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. “I’m just checking up on the Jezebel post,” Michelle replied finally. “I keep getting calls. It was supposed to be in an hour ago?”

  Could you spontaneously burst a blood vessel in your eye? Because Aditi’s began to twitch and she felt certain that any moment there would be a rupture and blood would explode from her body. But even if something like that were to happen, she was pretty sure Michelle would text and say that a hospital waiting room was a great place to get a little writing done.

  “They didn’t give me a topic,” Aditi said. “They told me to write about whatever I wanted.”

  “Well, that’s great, isn’t it?” This time, Michelle’s voice was upbeat, but it sounded affected, fake. “Write how you feel about… whatever!”

  “I don’t want to write about anything,” Aditi shot back, a little more forcefully than she intended. “That’s the problem.”

  “There must be something. Growing up Gujarati in Madison, maybe?”

  “I’ll figure it out, Michelle. Let me do my job. Please.” Aditi sighed again. “If I need you, I’ll call you.”

  “Okay, but just know I’m—”

  “I know. Good gravy, woman, I know.” Aditi wanted to hang up, but reminded herself that Michelle was a friend. And she wanted it to stay that way. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  “I don’t mean to pressure you, but Jez does want the post to go live this afternoon.”

  Michelle did mean to pressure. Because to Miche, pressure meant fire and ambition and results. To Aditi, it meant intense cravings to flee to a world of sex and sugar. “Understood. Later, Miche.” And then she did hang up. Because if she heard one more word, Aditi was going to straight-up lose her shit.

  There was a light knock behind her, and Aditi turned to see Druv standing at the open door. He was dressed for work, dashing as ever. “You look like a tea kettle that’s been left on the stove too long.”

  He knew her so well. “I’m late on something for Jezebel.”

  “You’re always late,” Druv replied, laughing. “It’s part of your charm.”

  “Yeah, well, Michelle doesn’t find me so charming right now,” Aditi grumbled.

  “And the feeling’s entirely mutual.” Druv crossed to Aditi and kissed her on the top of the head. “But here’s the thing. We’re talking about a few months of bullshit for everything you’ve ever wanted. Then, when you’re a bestseller, you can tell Faraday and Jezebel and the whole world to wait their damn turn for the attention of Aditi Sodhi.”

  “Your version of things sounds nice,” she said, sighing. “But right now, I want to burn everything down. Neesha got doxed by some WoW assholes.”

  Druv first looked sympathetic, but then gave her a warning look. “That’s terrible, but don’t. You’re great at starting fires and not so great at putting them out.”

  “But I want to help,” Aditi replied.

  “Then bake her some kopra pak and overnight it,” he replied. “Sit on the phone with her and let her bitch about how awful it is. That helps. Don’t freak out in a public forum where you can only do more harm than good.”

  “You’re always so sensible.”

  “Now I’ve got to go dive headlong into the ins and outs of commercial zoning practices.” Druv narrowed his eyes and spoke like he was luring her into dirty talk. This made Aditi laugh, probably for the first time that day. “Envy me.”

  “Have a great day,” she told him.

  “You too. And remember, no fires.” And then he was gone and the quiet Aditi so loved returned. Druv was her best friend
and the two of them could talk for hours, but she always appreciated when the world became still once again.

  No fires, that’s what he’d said. But she felt the flames all around her. And Aditi wasn’t about to get burned, or let her friends suffer.

  You want a blog post on how I feel? Aditi thought to herself. Well, buckle up, because you’re about to get one. With no hesitation, Aditi began to type.

  Safe Spaces

  A lot has been made lately of “safe spaces.” There are people on both sides of this issue: Do we need safe spaces in order to shelter from discrimination and marginalization? Or do we all need to pull up our big-girl panties and deal with the reality of freedom of speech, even when that speech is not only antithetical to our own beliefs, but has the potential to put us in real danger? From colleges canceling controversial speakers to limiting hate speech directed at women and LGBTQI in offices, this topic has been held up as a sign that millennials need to be coddled. Suddenly we’re “snowflakes” for asking for consideration.

  But here’s the thing—freedom of speech is no longer the warm apple pie, bald eagles, and quests for “pursuit of happiness” that misguided nostalgia dangles in front of us. Some people—some cowards—are hiding behind freedom of speech as they physically threaten and mentally abuse complete strangers via an Internet connection and the click of a mouse.

  Case in point…

  Recently, a friend of mine was doxed after besting someone in an online game. For those of you who don’t know, doxing means her personal and work information was published across the Internet. And because this is the world we live in, hundreds of people took that as an invitation to harass her in ways too unthinkable to print here. What should have been a simple argument between two people sharing a common interest quickly became a flame war.

  There is little recourse for her. HR won’t help. The police won’t help. It’s difficult to fight an enemy with no name or face. She’s left to deal with the threat on her own, wondering if every knock at the door is friend or foe, and what fresh horrors the simple act of opening the mail will bring.

  And sure, you can make the argument that it’s just some disgruntled MRA (men’s rights activist) writing from the basement of his parents’ house, but that doesn’t make the troll any less dangerous. Mailing hateful, awful things is as easy as a trip to the post office, and access to guns is ubiquitous in this country. Who’s to say they won’t take it a step further and show up at her house? Or pass the torch to another who wants payback for their own perceived slights?

  This is why safe spaces are so crucial, and why it makes me uncomfortable to live in a world with so few of them. If you’re white, middle-class, and male, you probably haven’t spent much of your life looking over your shoulder. Wondering if that catcall will lead to the asshole chasing you down the street, or worse, following and assaulting you. Worrying that doing nothing more than walking into your place of worship puts you at risk for physical harm. You probably haven’t received a picture of you dropping your own children off at school. Or gotten an inbox full of rape and death threats.

  And if it means a few assholes have to moderate their words, right on! Welcome to the world women have always inhabited. We’ve always watched our words and expressions, trying to find any way to keep danger at bay. So, men, please don’t complain that women play “hard to get” or behave coyly and make you think they like you instead of just coming straight out with a rejection. We’ve turned a corner in this country, and it’s starting to look an awful lot like a Margaret Atwood dystopia.

  MRAs seem to think we’re coming for their words, their jobs, their roles in society. But why is it always about them? In my line of work, I see daily evidence of this. Male writers who seem to think that what’s important to them MUST be important to the rest of the world. They trot out the same tired tropes of damsels and rape culture, whitewashed, patriarchal sci-fi worlds, and get enraged when readers don’t want to slog through it anymore. Truly, I don’t care if a kickass book wins every award in the universe, no matter who writes it. But if my book is better and gets ignored because I’m a woman of color, I definitely care.

  Personally, I’m done feeling unsafe in my own home, my own city. I’m done cowering and placating and hoping that maybe this time, you’ll just get bored and walk away. Hoping that maybe this time, speaking up doesn’t mean making myself a target. Words matter. My words, your words. What you might see as overly politically correct, I see as basic human decency. All we’re asking is that you look at everyone with the same respect you would a friend. Is that really so hard?

  Still feeling furious, Aditi immediately uploaded the blog post into an email draft to Jezebel. She didn’t even spell-check it. Jez had copy editors, right? So be it. She had words on a page. Let them worry about what came next.

  ELLI

  Elli loved working for Ruby, the professional cosplayer. Ruby’s life was Comic-Con come to life, and Elli couldn’t get enough of it. The woman knew all the major players on both sides, from the writers and actors to the best cosplayers. This morning Ruby had gotten a call from Kami Garcia, the author of Beautiful Creatures! Elli wanted to slip into a Southern accent and go all Lena Duchannes, but she’d gotten so nervous, she’d barely been able to muddle through the general niceties, let alone cast a spell of enchantment on the author. Every day here felt like that first time she walked into Disney World at five years old: lush and expansive and full of possibilities.

  Elli was starting to understand her friends’ fascinations with their jobs. Well, not all of them. Christina didn’t seem to like anything that much. But Aditi, Taneesha, and Michelle had such passion for their work, and while Elli was thrilled by what they eventually produced, she didn’t understand the way they did their jobs. Slogging through boring tasks day in and day out, without the help of hyperspeed or a flagrate spell. But sitting here, even answering emails to con organizers and setting up travel, Elli realized she was creating her own spells. That must be how her friends felt every day, creating something from nothing. It was addictive, and Elli wanted to live in this world forever.

  Ruby came into the room, two small boxes balanced on her knees. It was an effort for her, Elli could see, moving herself in the wheelchair while avoiding spilling out all of the envelopes from the open-top boxes. Elli jumped up and took control of the chair without being asked. “Where to, boss?” she asked, putting on her best Dick Tracy accent.

  Usually, Ruby played along, but today, she merely nodded across the room. She looked tired. This made Elli want to wrap her up in a blanket. Ruby did so much for everyone else; Elli wanted to be the one who took care of her. “The desk is fine, Elli.” It was a short roll to the desk Ruby had designated for Elli, and Ruby placed the box on top, patting it. “I was hoping you could help me go through some correspondence.”

  Of course Ruby got fan mail. There were probably thousands of little girls poring over Internet pictures of her cosplay at cons, just waiting for the day they were old enough to go themselves. Elli had been that little girl not so long ago. And I get to be right by her side!

  “Absolutely,” Elli answered, taking her seat. “How do you want me to answer?”

  “For the fan letters, there are signed pictures in the filing cabinet,” Ruby replied. “For the hate mail, I have a file on the computer. You need to keep track of any name or address listed, and for those with neither, where the letter is postmarked from. As you’re doing this, check and make sure that any of the worst ones—things like rape or death threats—don’t already have entries into the system. A lot of those are repeat writers.”

  Elli froze, sure she’d heard Ruby wrong. “Rape and death threats? Who would send those to you?”

  Ruby sighed, shrugging. “I long ago gave up trying to understand the motives of people who would do and say such things.”

  Elli’s mind moved to Taneesha. This was twice in one week she’d heard of something like this. But she didn’t want to believe the world was like that.
It comforted her to imagine that faeries and sprites and Winchesters protected people from bad things.

  Elli looked down at the box, seeing it anew. It no longer looked like a glittering jewelry box full of love. Now she saw it for what it was—Nagini, hissing and spitting at her, trying to draw her back through its horrid letters. This box was a horcrux, and she wanted no part of it.

  “Is there something else I can do for you?” Elli asked, her tone bright. “Any sewing work? Calls to airlines or hotels?” There was always a list of cons just ahead in the schedule.

  Ruby put out her hand and squeezed Elli’s arm. “This is what I need you from now, Elli.”

  “But surely it doesn’t need to be done right this moment?”

  Ruby’s patience finally ran out. “Elli, you see that I need help. This is what I need from you right now.”

  Elli’s smile faltered, and she nodded. “Sure.” She didn’t want to disappoint Ruby.

  The letters were awful. Some were cute and sunny, as she’d expected, but far fewer than made sense in any kind of rational world. Elli had packaged up four signed headshots and readied their envelopes, but that was it. The middle range was essentially spam, people trying to sell stuff Ruby didn’t need or asking for donations for MRA organizations, things her boss would never support in a million years. Those were easily disposed of, shredded or tossed right in the trash. And then there were the rest.

  Vile, hateful letters of all sorts, most with no return address.

  Did you see me in the elevator at Wonder Con last year? You were lucky you weren’t alone. I fantasized about yanking you from that fucking chair and raping you to death right there. Rabid feminist blood gives me power. Pray you never meet me again.

  Why don’t you kill yourself and save the rest of us the misery of staring at you?

  You’re everything that’s wrong with the cosplay world and you’ll get what’s coming to you.

  These were combinations of words Elli had never imagined anyone would put together. Surely no one actually felt this way? What was the point of saying such terrible things?