Jake Addams May 8th,20XX

“Sparrow, can you come to help me with this?”

A petulant Finn ignored the other makeup artists that were already flocking around him and specifically called out the already overextended Sparrow to his side. 

“I’ll be over in a minute.”

I could see the flashes of irritation on her face even as she responded nicely but she didn’t show it to Finn who had already attempted to escape three times in the past half hour. It was pretty clear that he was purposefully antagonizing her but we were all unified in our refusal to stop him, even if our reasons were diverse.

I didn’t bother asking Finn to ease up because it wasn’t any of my business but the others that had much more malicious intentions towards their usually absentee leader chose to vicariously experience revenge through Finn’s petty actions. Others were just happy that Finn could at least make her stick around the whole day so she couldn’t slip off and disappear again.

As she made her way across the room Melissa tagged after her, listing off all the changes their writers and costumers had made, noting down all the changes Sparrow recommended. Despite her recent unreliability, she was still the listed leader of the group; although at the size we were at now it would be more apt to call us a company.

“Focus a bit more Jake, I need you to work with me here.”

A muffled voice, the result of a mouth full of pins, gently chastised me and drew my attention back to the robotic arm that was being fitted onto me.

Well, at the moment it was more of a sleeve than a full arm but even in its unfinished state, the effect was magnificent.

The silver nuts and bolts were set realistically at the joints of my elbow, wrists and even each finger and clockwork wheels were artistically placed around the arm in a slightly darker shade of metal. Right now, they were putting a few scratches onto the arm to make it look battle-hardened, or whatever the goal was.

I was just a poster boy rather than an actor, so I didn’t plan on memorizing any more of the overarching futuristic-dystopian-steam punk theme they had eventually settled on and just kept my two to three lines in mind.

“Come on Finn, didn’t you say you wanted me to help you?”

I turned around, despite just being lectured about my skills as a living mannequin and witnessed Sparrow, who was at least 3 inches shorter than Finn, somehow simultaneously holding him down and pinning a tiara into his half-styled hair.

On my other side, a few of the guys had set up camp and were planning out a new game to play as an exhibition match.

The original plan had been to take one of the games from the ancient civilization and just play in costume but since the concept had changed to the futuristic-dystopian-steampunk mess that it was now, that was no longer an option.

They had then gotten the bright idea to make up a new game and were in the process of trying to merge all the sports they knew of into one. I think they had settled on a marathon-style course with modified versions of other games as trials to overcome as it advanced but once again I was determined not to get involved and would just wait until they had finished their creation to learn all the rules and how to play it.

Despite all the roles I was being forced into, I didn’t fight too hard against them since I was still a third-year and one of the original members of this group. It was more beneficial than it was frustrating was what I told myself.

After all, wouldn’t it be tragic if I ended up being the only person that did get any offers from any companies because I didn’t showcase my skills?

But then again, I was technically already employed for life and didn’t actually need any offers for a future job so I rounded back to questioning why I was letting myself be pinned up like a rag doll.

Even more questionable than my actions was Finn’s sudden investment into the showcase. Over the past two or three days, he had suddenly become passionate about it all, even going as far as to secure a large tent to stretch over one of the larger areas of the school’s backyard and negotiating its total renting to our faux company.

I had overheard a few members of his team discussing their plans and it looked like they were going to attempt to create a miniature world in the backyard, complete with hastily created sets of buildings and arenas. Even cafes and prisons were being planned and contracted out.

I knew it was fine because he had the money to do it but I was wondering if this was him officially revealing that he wasn’t just a ‘scholarship student’ or if as usual he just didn’t think that deeply into it. Or maybe it would be from another ‘anonymous donor’.

I was also wondering when he would realize he had been switched to one of the main roles in this event, instead of a minor side character as he had signed up for.

He had originally agreed to take part on the floor of the event because we didn’t have enough people but I wondered if he had even spared a thought to question why he was still being fitted into the elaborate costume, despite our cast and crew of over 70 people.

I somewhat felt bad for him because he was so busy with his actual job and coordinating all the materials, funds and locations we would need for the showcase but my growing sympathy quickly died down when I thought he wouldn’t have to do much. His only job would be to sit still and look pretty.

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It may be a little hard for him, seeing as he was probably used to taking proactive roles in his life as a leader of a big company but maybe it would be a welcome reprieve for him.

“Sparrow!”

Once again she was called over from the other side of the large room to help him with a minor thing, drawing her irritation in the sickly-sweet smile that she sent to Finley like a candied knife.

It was odd to see the two most unpredictable members of the group try their best to annoy each other to death but I couldn’t say that it wasn’t entertaining.

“I think we’re done here Jake but we still need a few more adjustments to make it stable so don’t make any unnecessary movements, Okay? You can head over to make up for the eye.”

I stood super still as the soft metallic arm was secured onto me with a few more pins and went over to makeup where Finn was still raising a fuss to try on ‘my 'eye.’

The character I was playing was that of the ruler’s son’s bodyguard, friend and nanny.

The back story was quite tragic, being set as a crippled child soldier that was rescued off the streets due to a tantrum thrown by the ruler’s son. He then had his broken limbs and a few pieces of his brain replaced by robot pieces and was further trained to protect the kid.

A bit cliché yeah, but I thought it was quite admirable for a group of high schoolers as we were, that only had a week to come up with an entire world and almost 30 people worth of characters, character design and backstories for all.

Even the crew that would be working in the background would have one-line stories that they could tell the visitors of the theme park if they were approached.

I also had to give silent props to the costume team who looked like they would murder anyone with a needle if given half the opportunity and their comrades from the carpeting section that had to build so many sets and coordinate with the props team to make sure everything matched.

In comparison to all of them, wearing a costume and walking around the park and saying a few cliché lines every once in a while wasn’t too bad.

The make-up artist that I had been assigned to was a bit overly appreciative of my ability to stay still and quiet as the background music of Finn and Sparrow arguing over who could and could not touch his face ensued but I could only give her and the others who tried to mediate that mess of a scene a pitying look in response.

Even though my character was a nanny to a full-grown man, it had no bearing on my real-life responsibilities and none of the pleading looks any of them sent me would make me think otherwise.

She worked quickly as she placed the metallic contact in my eye and plastered ‘wires’ from my actual eye shape to behind my ear.

“Stop being such a child Finn! Look at Jake and see how cooperative he’s being. You don’t need me to do everything for you!”

“But you can do everything so why would I let some random stranger touch my face? Remember the only reason I’m doing this is because of you.”

Finn gave his point in his usual dry voice like she was the one being ridiculous and elicited an incredulous laugh from Sparrow, who looked two seconds from grabbing him by the neck and making sure he couldn’t ever talk again.

“Don’t you forget that YOU were the one that came to me and asked if you could join my group? If not for you and Jake over there do you think I would have started anything so large scale? And why the hell are we starting a theme park when the original plan was just a play or even a fashion show? Since you were suddenly so enthusiastic about making so much work for everyone else to do, it’s the least you can do to put on some clothes and look pretty.”

That was twice that my name had been mentioned in their squabbling but I closed my eyes and once again made a mental choice to not get involved in any of it.

You are just a mannequin, Jake. No feelings or emotions and certainly no interest. Just get through this then you can go home and take a long nap. Or maybe you can take the kids off your stepmom and go to the ballpark or something. If you want to do any of that then you can’t get involved with any of those troublesome people. You are a mannequin.

I mentally repeated my makeshift mantra over and over again until they finally calmed down but for some reason, I was too scared to open my eyes.

Or well rather than scared the more appropriate word to use would have been reluctant to open my eyes. There were a few reasons for this.

The first was the makeup artist was still fiddling with the wires that she was in the process of fusing into my skin but the second, and probably most important was the strong presence of two extra figures looming around me.

“Woah, that looks pretty cool, can’t I have one?”

A strong trace of interest filtered through the tell-tale dry voice of one of the figures but it was cut off by the irritated voice of the other.

“Of course, you can’t, it doesn’t at all fit with the character. Did you even bother reading the character slip I gave you?”

“I read it, I just thought it was stupid.”

I thanked the heavens on his behalf that the writing group wasn’t currently around to have heard his evaluation of their character that had been tailor-made for him but could only smile when I heard him hastily retract his statement.

“Ah, I didn’t mean that the character itself was stupid, I just thought it didn’t suit me… Much… I’ll go back to the chair.”

He thudded away and left Sparrow to hover over me and discuss the details of my costume with the dude still working on the last pieces of the eye.

The photography team was on their way to take the concept photos and make advertisement fliers for the event, hence why I had to wear the full costume. Anything that had to be changed could probably be touched up with photoshop, but we had to get the word out before Alice’s group and garner interest. But honestly, I didn’t think we had much to worry about.

If their plans were still the same then they would probably just stick to participating in the school's planned affairs rather than making their own miniature festival as we were. Each event would last about an hour or two, and they had limited entrance and exit even with the pricy attendance tickets. That was why many people would only go to the few that they held specific interest for and would spend the rest of the day either wandering around or would just go home.

In contrast, I was sure that our theme park-like showcase would be a lot easier to visit since we only had a small fee for an entrance ticket and you could go in and out as you wanted across the five-day affair. Well, you would have to pay each day but I didn’t think that was unreasonable.

All of this was only possible because of the hidden ‘sponsor’ that backed our group, but I didn’t feel like it was my place to expose him and I felt like the only people that even realized how odd it all was were directly under Finn’s department anyways.

“Okay, you’re done here, so you can head over to the photographer.”

I got up and tried to smile in thanks but stopped as soon as I felt the super glue pull at the tender skin around my eye.

Ahh. I really hope this comes off.

I couldn’t help but think as I tested out other facial expressions and could only alternate between a frown, a pained grimace and a dull expression. The militant style of the costume was overly reminiscent of the old uniform of the school I used to go too, and I semi-consciously found myself changing the way I walked to a military march which earned myself a few jeers from the guys and joking whistles but I ignored them and focused on where I was going.

Yeah, it was a lot to do, and even more to think about but I couldn’t help but enjoy the moment. The majority of us were in the third year and would all graduate soon and these types of pure moments would be hard to come by in the real world, even harder would be the opportunities to hang out with our friends because of work.