by J Bennett
We’d dug up a simple vid recording program in her software that allows her to connect and control up to four individual cam drones. I shudder to imagine how Mayor Wisenberg might have used that particular feature. In our case, at least, clothes will be staying on.
As Gold, our self-appointed producer, works with Kitty, it becomes apparent that the sex bot’s recording program is more than a little clunky. A cam bangs the ceiling and spirals down, almost crashing into the floor until it sputters back into a smooth-ish orbit. Kitty also seems intent on only getting super close-up shots. Ew.
Mermaid is unusually quiet, standing near the window in a clean blue lab coat. She didn’t stay the night, instead driving off to her own secret lair as soon as she’d put Gold to bed. Sequoia tries to keep out of the way, but it almost seems to make things worse. His body is so big that there’s no corner he can squeeze into. He’s already gotten tagged by a cam drone twice, accidentally knocking one into the wall when he turned around too quickly.
The Professor paces in the hallway, his voice lilting up and down as he growls out his lines. I move into the hallway and watch him quietly for a moment, admiring the energy and passion of his preparation.
“Don’t forget to limp,” I tell him.
“Ah, Iron.” He turns and smiles at me. “What a memorial hostage vid this shall be. And it’s all due to your quick thinking.”
“I got lucky.”
The Professor wags a finger at me good-naturedly and proclaims, “Luck gives you opportunities. Wit and skill allow you to take advantage of them.” He pauses and his voice loses its bombast. “Do not doubt your iron will.”
I can’t help but smile back at him. “Then you’re not mad about the slight change of plans yesterday?”
“Furious, but no scientist worth his PhD can argue with results, can they?”
“I suppose not.” I’m relieved he isn’t pissed at me, and it’s not just because he signs the paychecks. I’ve always been fond of Gerald, but over the past weeks, I’ve come to realize I care about him and about what he thinks about me.
Don’t get attached. That’s one of Tickles’s most important rules. Villains routinely swipe their henchmen or “kill” them off to gush ratings. Gerald isn’t a father figure. He’s my boss, and I need to remember that I’m always expendable unless I prove otherwise.
Speaking of which…
“I uh… I had some ideas to glam up the hostage vid,” I say softly to Gerald… no, to The Professor. He leans in closer to me.
“Do tell, my dear.”
A few mins later, Gold leans into the hallway. “We’re almost ready,” he reports. “Professor, how about you stand here.” Gold motions to a spot near the window. “That will give you some good light. I’ll need the henchmen to huddle here. Mr. Anders will be right between us. Mr. Mayor?”
From the kitchen, our hostage raises an impatient finger. “The firefighter union chief is crying about robo integration again and I’ve still got to swipe my security company,” he says, distractedly.
It’s been business as usual for Ash Anders since he came charging out of the master bedroom an hour ago looking like he got little, if any, sleep. His collar is unbuttoned, his hair just the smallest bit ruffled, but otherwise he’s dialed up to full power player. So far, he’s spent his stay with us stalking around whatever room isn’t occupied, yelling into his Band, listening and nodding, and directing his staff on the schedule of the day. His stamina is impressive and annoying. He’s gotten more done in the last 30 minutes than I think I’ve accomplished in my entire life.
“Mr. Anders, if you’d please,” Gold says. “We have to get this hostage vid up before anyone figures out you’ve been kidnapped. We don’t want the gossip Streams to beat us to our own story!”
Those gossip Streams are busy enough gushing about our heist. Shaky vids from the evening are everywhere showing Gold on stage badgering the auctioneer and the march of the Valkyrie security robos. One or two swing around to catch Mermaid firing her laz pistol and knocking down security guards in quick succession. The vids always cut out after a flash of light washes across the scene. I see myself in one vid, a blur of red ruffles and bright beads swinging over my face, scurrying with the panicked crowd. Nothing suspicious.
“Fine,” the mayor says. “Where do you want me?”
“I want you to sit on the couch between me and Arsenic looking meek and scared. Iron and Nitrogen, you stand on either side of the couch and try to project at least a sliver of intimidation.”
“Meek isn’t going to work,” Ash Anders proclaims. “I’ll do defiant and I’ll be standing, not sitting.”
Gold looks pained by the stubbornness of his subject. Ash Anders has already refused to be tied up or even encased in a block of dry ice.
It takes some shuffling but eventually Ash Anders stands tall and proud in front of the couch, arms crossed over his chest, face set in a steely expression. The unbuttoned collar is a nice touch, I realize. He looks a little unvarnished, but his expression shows that he isn’t cowed.
Kitty stands on the other side of the room as she controls the drones. “You all look so glam,” she gushes. “And so very handsome.” Her voice drops into husky tones.
“Interesting robo,” Ash Anders comments.
“She’s a reformed sex bot,” I inform him.
“Oh.”
“Alright, here we go. Billion-Loon expressions,” Gold hollers. “Kitty, start rolling. Professor, when you’re ready.”
Our boss glares into the cam. “You dismissed my ideas. You denied my grant applications. You laughed behind my back,” he says, his voice low and dangerous. “You thought I was just some lunatic, settling scores with heroes in Big Little City, but this town cannot contain me. I am THE PROFESSOR.” His voice rises up in righteous indignation. “See how you laugh NOW!”
He bellows on while I try to stare menacingly at Ash Anders. Our hostage is stoic as The Professor rants.
“Villainy isn’t confined to a single city or single state. It can strike anywhere. Anyone,” The Professor says, voice dropping to a low growl. Clearly, Gerald relishes every single sec of this, and he’s good at it, too. I feel a chill travel through my bones as his gravelly voice projects throughout the room. “So, Chicago, if you want to see your precious mayor again, I demand $10 billion in unmarked bills, delivered to me in Warehouse Six by… Sage Anders herself!”
“Don’t do it!” Ash Anders cries fiercely. Gold grabs him and throws a light jab into his face. Anders stumbles but doesn’t fall. The blow was hard enough to leave a mark on his cheek.
“I’ll see you in my petri dish, Ms. President,” The Professor says and unleashes his iconic laughter. I hold my spot, keeping my expression tight until Gold finally claps his hands and strolls to the center of the room.
“Excellent! Excellent!” Gold says. “Did I hit you too hard, Mr. Mayor?”
“What the hell was that?” Ash Anders says, practically spitting on The Professor. “We didn’t discuss bringing my mother into this.”
I secretly congratulate myself on the suggestion I’d given The Professor. It seems the rumors are true. Ash has more than a little animosity toward Momsy. Throwing her into the equation will surely up the ante of our vid, and—bonus—it clearly hit a nerve with Ash Anders. I don’t miss the loss of his self-satisfied, know-it-all smile one bit.
“Not to worry.” The Professor waves away the mayor’s anger. “She won’t come, obviously. That was simply a dramatic flair. They’ll probably send Mayor Wisenberg.” He gives Ash Anders a friendly look that says, You understand, right?
Anders looks at me. Can he see my fingerprints on the plan? I give him a shrug. The Professor is right. Ash Anders should understand. As far as I’m concerned, semi-reality and politics are basically shades of the same color.
“I don’t even think we need another take,” Gold is saying. “I’ll just edit the vid, throw in some effects, and then we’ll figure out how to take over all the screens
in the city and run this in an hour or so.”
“Call Crystalise at the City Council. She’ll walk you through it,” The Professor says, a wide smile on his face. This hostage vid will travel across all the gossip Streams, splash on the news Streams, and squarely place The Professor back on his throne as the top vil in Biggie LC.
“You shouldn’t have brought her into this,” Ash Anders growls again. His eyes are full of storm clouds. He stalks out of the room. “Get Lindselai,” he barks at his Band and slams the door to the master bedroom. He’s been calling her all night and all day. I still haven’t figured out if she’s his chief of staff, his press secretary, or maybe his girlfriend.
“How about I whip up some breakfast for everyone?” Sequoia suggests. As soon as he says the words, I realize that my stomach is an open pit of hunger.
“I’ll help,” I volunteer, shamefully positioning myself for first dibs on whatever grub Sequoia’s got.
Gold has already retreated to the office where we’ve set up Leo’s editing equipment. I have no doubt his enthusiastic offer to help edit our hostage vid is just an excuse to make sure he grabs as much lens time as possible. Then again, I’m already conniving how to get more than my fair share of food. I suppose we all strive where our passions lie.
Gold has also offered to edit our next ep. Too bad Leo’s vid files are all biometrically locked. That’s a major prob. No Leo means no ep delivered to the PAGS Sector 8 Regional office in two days when it’s due. Tatianna Wentworth likely won’t be so forgiving of our Chicago field trip if we don’t have any dramatic footage to show for it.
But that’s a knot to untangle after breakfast.
“Well, my dear, I suppose that leaves us to work on the problem of a new lair,” The Professor says to Mermaid. “Our newly available budget should be quite helpful in this endeavor.”
The tall, blonde henchman seems to shake away her thoughts and forces a smile on her lips. “Of course, Professor,” she says. This side adventure will probably get her some good lens time as well. As Tickles the Elf says, “The lens is always focused on the boss.”
Realizing I’ve been out-maneuvered once again by my savvier coworkers with a helping hand from my traitorous stomach, I slink to the kitchen after Sequoia. One cam drone buzzes after me, dinging a wall as it swoops through the opening.
Sequoia’s immaculate kitchen contains a decorative stove and pots and pans stacked neatly in little cubbies below the counter. A holographic border wraps around the top of the walls showcasing plants that slowly grow and ripen. I expect Sequoia to pull some fancy snack bars or pre-made boxed meals from one of the cabinets. I doubt he has to live on cardboard-tasting gov nutra-packs like I do. Still, I’m shocked when he places a pan on the stove.
Stoves are usually only for show, though sometimes rich people spend tons of Loons on specialty cook robos that are programmed to use them. Sequoia doesn’t keep a full-service robo in his home, just a cleaning bot that’s currently hibernating in a closet to keep out of the way.
“Everyone likes scrambled eggs, right?” he asks.
“Real eggs?” I blurt out.
Sequoia glances at me, his freckled face quizzical. Then, quietly, he asks, “You’ve never eaten real eggs before?”
I despise the pity in his voice. He probably grew up eating fresh eggs every day.
“Course I have,” I hiss. My father would take Alby and me out to breakfast on our birthday each year. I remember how he’d proclaim loud enough for everyone to hear, “real eggs and buttermilk pancakes for Twinly One and Twinly Two.” That was when he had a job. When we lived in a house just a little smaller than this one. That was before he left to look for work and found an entirely new life instead; one that didn’t include us.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t…” Sequoia begins.
“I’m worried about Leo,” I say, abruptly.
“The Professor says that no one knows who Leo is, so he’s not a valuable hostage,” Sequoia responds as he places the pan on the stove. He pulls open the door to his fridge, dips inside, and pulls out a bumpy container. The face of his fairy Totem, Evangeline, appears on a screen above the stove. “Doing some cooking?” she asks kindly.
“Yes, eggs please,” he says.
“You got it, Chauncy.” She winks at him and the stove hums to life. Sequoia cracks an egg on the side of the pan. I watch the goopy thing fall into the pan, the bright orange yolk swimming in a puddle of translucent white. It’s so strange to think it came from the body of an actual animal.
How much do eggs even cost? With dust storms across the Midwest, drought parching the west, and super hurricanes in the south, raising livestock is risky and expensive. Most of the largest farms keep their animals permanently sheltered in climate-controlled grow houses.
I push those thoughts away and refocus on Leo. The Professor isn’t exactly right. Leo is a valuable hostage. He reviewed our paperwork when we applied for the show and knows all our identities. A cape wouldn’t have much reason to badger him for a ratings boost, but there’s plenty of reason to try and make him talk off screen.
“Leo could unmask any of us,” I point out. “Even The Professor.”
I can smell the eggs. Sequoia has cracked a dozen, and now he mixes them around with a big wooden spoon.
“But torturing a producer…” Sequoia shakes his head. “It’s just not done.”
I realize that the holo-plants on the walls are fruit trees. Just above Sequoia’s head, an orange tree slowly blossoms with its round, brightly colored fruits.
“Things are changing,” I tell him. “Personas aren’t following the unsaid rules anymore. Shadow isn’t.”
The eggs are growing firm in the pan. Sequoia mixes them again and large chunks rise from the goo.
“The Professor thinks it was Beacon who released Shine,” he says.
Now I’m the one shaking my head. It wasn’t her, I’m sure of that. “Beacon wouldn’t have made such a mess of the door,” I tell him. That hole was sloppy. Beacon is nothing if not elegant. Her Light Blade could have carved the entire door out. “And Beacon would have waited for us to return,” I add. “She wouldn’t have wasted an opp to take down The Professor or at least a few of his henchmen. It had to be someone else.”
Sequoia shrugs. “Well, I guess Shine will surface soon enough and release an ep of what happened. Then we’ll know.”
The scent of the eggs fills the kitchen and my stomach aches for food. It’s strange watching Sequoia cook. It’s such a rich person thing to do. Sure, the Streams are filled with cooking shows, everything from cupcake competitions to tutorials on how to create mouth-watering meals using only synthetic protein gel, but no one I know actually cooks. Well, except my mother, but heating up oats for breakfast and then rice and some veggies for dinner is the extent of her culinary skill.
“I find it relaxing,” Sequoia says as if he can read my skepticism. “Cooking. My mom taught me. We had robos, but she said cooking your own food made it taste better and she was right.” There’s pride in his voice.
I check my Band. One egg costs the same as four gov nutra-packs. What a drooling waste of money.
I lean against the counter and cross my arms over my chest. “Will your father really kick you out of the company?”
Sequoia gives me a thin smile. “He knows I was trying out to be a henchman for The Professor. It was a terrible embarrassment to him. I suppose he’ll figure out I was involved in the kidnapping last night.” He grabs up two small, silver obelisks, turns them upside down and shakes them over the fluffy pile of scrambled eggs in the pan. Salt and pepper fall on them like snow.
“Will your dad unmask you?” I ask, curious.
Sequoia stares at the eggs. “No,” he says softly. “That would tarnish our family’s reputation, make us vulnerable. He’d never let that happen.”
I remember the intensity of his father’s gaze last night, the way people shrunk away from him as he moved through the crowd. It strikes me, suddenly but w
ith pure conviction, that Sequoia may actually be the bravest of us all.
“I have a younger sister, Geneva-Rose” Sequoia says. “Dad will probs bring her into the company. She’s spoiled and, well, not very canny. She won’t do well.” He opens the fridge and pulls out… What are those? I look at the red fruits nestled in the small container in his hand. Strawberries. Of course the guy has real strawberries just sitting around in his fridge for an afternoon snack.
“I don’t have many,” he says. “Wasn’t expecting company, but I’ll chop them up.”
“You were saying?”
He pulls a knife from a block I had assumed was purely decorative. Overhead, I watch grapes ripen on holographic vines. Sequoia chops the strawberries slowly, carefully.
“I’m still not exactly sure if he only cast me out from working under his division of PAGS or from our entire family.” More chopping. His head is down but I see the red flush rising in his cheeks. “I haven’t deemed it wise to ask for clarification.”
I push off the counter and put a hand on his arm, suddenly ashamed of my jealousy and resentment. “I’m on my own, too,” I say quietly.
The knife pauses and he looks at me. There’s something in his eyes, something that makes me uncomfortable.
I take my hand away and step back. “You have to learn to be strong,” I say to him. “If people see your weakness, they’ll take advantage of you. They’ll… they’ll take all your strawberries.” I pluck the last one from the container and pop it in my mouth.
Now his smile is weak, uncertain. “Thanks for the advice.”
“That’s what friends are for,” I mumble around my mouthful of sweet fruit. I turn and tail it out of the kitchen before he gives me another one of those longing gazes. Outside the kitchen, I look up and down the hallway wondering where I should go. If Leo were here, he’d probs tell me to spend time posting on my Iron Stream. After all, according to Bob, I’ve got over 121,000 hate messages to answer. Hmmmm, maybe I can help The Professor and Mermaid look for a new lair, preferably somewhere within walking distance of Culprits Coffee. That place has the best bear claw donuts and soon enough I’ll actually be able to afford some.