The candy store’s back door sparkled like it was the Fourth of July, a holiday that had been outlawed due to freedom fighter groups using it as an excuse to aim fireworks (yeah, they weren’t fireworks) at the Capital Building in 2029. Fireworks had been replaced by digital displays like that in Main Street of Vegas and Times Square in New York. That hadn’t stopped the rednecks from illegal fireworks that they bought from their local reservations, so the herd had been called to moo their way to the polls again. Save the children from dangerous fireworks (a phone ad slogan that was pitched with the pitiful pictures of 3-yr-old Sally Timits sans one of her eyes) had been the call to arms and the herd had voted out Independence Day as an American holiday. I only remembered it because I loved this old country song about it.
I’d made my way out of the Game Stop and into the candy store. Once again, I didn’t need to enter the store itself. The storeroom held lots of bags of candy that I could use to cushion the precious Switches in my oversized purse. So much for trying to pick up healthy options. Okay, I didn’t mind. My body was being fed a nutritious mix of chemicals in the pod somewhere so what difference did it make anyway? It wasn’t like the AI was going to make me fat because of my choices. All I had to do was represent the things that my viewers didn’t think they could do in real life, and I could embody their wish-fulfillment fantasies.
The employee hallway emptied out into the food court, but I didn’t peek out and check. That would look too suspicious. Like the perfectly behaved kitten in my hair or the curious little noses of the ferrets peeking up out of the back of my hair weren’t suspicious enough. Somehow, I strolled out of that hallway loaded down with loot and instead of walking out the door, I paused to order a burger, fries, and extra-large diet coke with ice. Then I called the cashier back and ordered five extra kid’s burgers and fries off the dollar menu. My cohorts were going to eat well tonight.
“Did you see what happened that made all that noise?” I asked the cashier as I slipped a twenty across the counter to pay for my posse’s meals.
“All I saw were two birds come flying up over the food court,” the bored teenager said, handing me my change with a shrug. She never even looked up to my face and therefore missed the fact that my entourage was sniffing at the interesting smells that tempted and tantalized me as much as them. That’s why I’d stopped for a take out meal. “If they shit on the tables, I’m not cleaning that shit up.”
Viewers – 263
“I don’t blame you,” I replied, my tone serious, but my eyes dancing. It didn’t look like this mall worker was going to clean tables even if they didn’t have bird poo on them. Nobody noticed me sit down at a table where someone had left half a lunch. I poked the nose of one of the ferrets back over my shoulder with a couple of fries that I’d snagged out of that lunch. The kitten got a bite of burger patty, and I nibbled on a pickle that didn’t look like it had a bite out of it.
“Order up,” the teenager called out. I picked up the huge bag with my order in it.
Even as the security guard came around the corner where the commotion had finally died down, he wasn’t looking for me. I put my shoulder to the exit door’s push handle as I watched that security guard arguing with what sounded like the pet store manager who was pointing up at the birds in the rafters.
The door closed behind me as I heard the security guard finally lose his shit and yell at the woman next to him, “No, I’m not climbing on some damn ladder to fetch your damn birds!”
Viewers – 275
Another one-liner I wouldn’t get credit for, but I was okay with that. I had stats to assign, pets to feed, and a motel room to find or something to crash in until I could figure out my next move. I kept my eyes scanning the parking lot as I loaded my loot and friends onto and into the Hoverhog. My little black ball of kitten fur sniffed noses at the ferrets who sniffed butts back. That ritual done, they all converged on the bounty of an upended bag of burgers and fries. I barely managed to snag my own out of the mix without getting my hand licked off.
Exp +500 (Quest: Escape the Mall. Quest Complete!)
With my loot nestled into the foot-room portion of the sidecar and my brood nested in a feeding frenzy on the seat, which was protected by that oversized purse, I peeled my own burger out of its wrapper. The parking lot was packed with cars. I fired up the engine on Stella and steered quietly with one hand so that the hog was far from my exit. I kept the speed super slow, not even shifting up since I only had one hand and that one was on the handle with the brake. I only moved us to the parking lot of a movie theater nearby, but not too close.
Once settled in the shade of a parking lot tree, I leaned back to finish my meal. I considered it quite convenient to have that cup holder for my drink between the sidecar and Stella’s seat. That was the next banner ad we got, thanks to those wonderful little net scuttlers. I was trying to find a way to not call them spiders, as I was still a bit raw on arachnids, in case you couldn’t tell from my pet store antics. The banner ad was of me eating my burger, my sneakered feet propped up on one of the handlebars as I stole a French fry from a stomach-bulging ferret who was so full he didn’t mind. The clickbait for it? “Cats don’t ask. Cat’s Take,” with the rest in smaller print below it, “I’d rather be a cat than a dog.” The banner had Biker-bozo in the distance behind me with a thought bubble that said “Woof!”
Exp +100 (Click-bait pick-up!)
So, now that I’m not running for my life or to not get caught, I can tell you about all these yummy changes that happened as I levelled up. The first level-up had given me the viewer count in the upper-right corner of my screen and a few metrics I didn’t understand yet below it. I’d levelled up again recently, but the only way I really knew that was that I now had a little expandable window below my metrics that would show me all of the banner ads or one-liners that were currently running, with this little line chart below each one that probably showed how they’d influenced my viewer-count. If I got this stuff every level, I was going to feel like one of those robot programs with a dozen drone screens taking up most of my peripheral vision.
I was more sure than ever that I needed to find a place where I could kick back and get through the red door so I could get into my character sheet and boost some stats. I gave my soda one more slurp and strapped on the helmet for safety. Helmets had become semi-invisible in VR, so what I looked like as we barreled down some back roads instead of that insane fast-forward highway, was free-wheeling, hair-flying behind me like a banner, crazy smile on my face that didn’t net me any bugs because it was VR and the World AI wasn’t pissed off at me.
We rode through a few cities in a montage of travel pics that left me breathless. It wasn’t any better than the highway. I pulled into a gas station that I hoped was enough cities away from my crime spree. I’d pulled off the road because I was dizzy, but as I made motions to pull over, my gas tank suddenly got very low and the place I pulled off spawned a diner, truck stop, and a semi-grungy motel that was making up its mind between rat-trap and clean-but-cheap. It settled on clean-but-cheap.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
My sleeping brood woke to poke their curious noses over the dash of the sidecar.
“Well guys?” I talked inanely to my pets, who unrealistically seemed to pay attention to my every word. “Think we’ve earned a break?”
The darker of the two ferrets chittered to the other, then looked back at me and nodded. It was a good thing I wasn’t eating something or I’d have choked. The kitten blinked soft, golden eyes at me as if to say, “Yes, this sounds nice. We should rest here.”
Viewers – 282
Instead of fueling up right away, I used the last of my sputtering fuel to pull into the motel instead. They still called them gas stations and people referred to fueling up and gas tanks as a nod back to the good old days, but they were actually mostly fast-charging stations. If you paid the fee, they’d charge your ride in the time it took you to grab and pay for some snacks in the store. I think they delayed the charge times just to make you buy something, but they didn’t admit that. I didn’t charge up the bike because a lot of motels would have a slow-charge parking spot or five that used solar power to charge you up for next to nothing. I pulled into one of those spots and locked the bike to head up to the plastic window of the motel check-in.
It was more of a check-in window with an excuse for a walk-in space where they kept the coffee so that they could claim that check on Motair. They probably put out a few packaged Danishes in the morning next to the coffee to claim a continental breakfast too. I’d heard there’d been dozens of motel/hotel websites in the past, but they’d been conglomerated into the one travel agency when they’d had the AI challenges of the 2050s and crowned the best travel AI with the Motair. I hadn’t had a chance to charge up my phones, so I’d have to be a walk-in where they would gouge me for whatever they could get out of me.
“How much for a night?” I asked on a resigned sigh.
“Twenty-two-fifty, plus tax and fees,” the abnormally red-haired woman muttered at me around the cigarette clenched in her teeth.
I handed over two twenties, pleasantly surprised by the old-fashioned prices. Then I realized the motel was one that dotted the real world. Product placement again? Was I getting any kickbacks for any of this stuff?
“Your change,” the woman’s creases rearranged so that she could move the cigarette from one side of her mouth to the other without touching it with the hands that were thrusting my change out to me.
“I gave you forty bucks,” I protested as I saw the nickel and key card she handed me.
“Fees,” she spat out and slid the window closed.
“Fees,” I nodded, resigned again. That was closer to what I’d expected. I knocked on the plastic and was blasted with a cloud of smoke as she opened it again. “Continental breakfast?”
“Pastries and coffee in the lobby in the morning between 6am and 7am,” the woman coughed out. Were we really promoting cigarettes and this motel chain or were we dissing them until they paid us to speak better of them. Eh, what did I care?
I passed a Black Thunderbird in the stall next to where I’d parked Stella and was a little shocked to find that my pets had gained some fans. One woman sat in the driver’s seat of the Thunderbird, while the other was crouched next to my sidecar offering a Cheeto to a reluctant ferret. The woman behind the wheel was a little gruff around the edges, curly hair barely held back by a black hair band that matched a black leather jacket I’d have loved to steal. Not that even I had the brazen guts to steal from a woman like that. The fresh-faced woman trying to coax the darker of the two ferrets to take her offering was wearing the same type of t-shirt and jeans as the rougher one, but she had a slightly chubbier face and blue eyes that the devil would trust.
Viewers – 301
Exp +100 (Quest: More Viewers!! Quest Complete!)
“Tam,” the driver hissed out as I leaned my hip against my Hoverhog and watched. “Tami.”
“Shhh! Jean,” Tami waved behind her back to the driver. “You’ll spook them.”
“It’s okay, Jean,” I gave what I hoped was a casual and amused shrug.
“Ack!” Tami fell back on her tush in such a cute way, I was tempted, and I don’t swing that way.
“It isn’t that they don’t like you, but they’re probably full from lunch,” I explained, offering a hand to help her up, even as the blacker of the ferrets stole the Cheeto out of her hand, making us all laugh. Well, Tami laughed, I snickered, and Jean gave a sideways smile complete with just a little huff.
“Sorry, they’re just too cute.” Tami took my hand and let me help her up with a flirtatious smile, her smile, not mine. I was too much of a klutz for a flirtatious smile, but Tami seemed to do it naturally.
“No worries,” I brushed off her apology as she brushed off the back of her perfectly fitting jeans that framed a perfect… well, I thought I was straight. I took a breath and blew it out, running my hand behind my head.
Viewers – 312
“Tam,” Jean broke our tension easily. “We should leave the nice lady alone and get a room.”
“Which credit card are we using?” Tam asked, reaching in her back pocket for a wallet I would not have thought would fit tucked in that way.
“Jesus, Tam,” Jean swore a bit under her breath and cast a meaningful glance at me.
Then it hit me who they were, and I rolled my eyes at the World AI. Okay, I could take a hint. If it was going to throw these gals at me, I would play along until I could ditch them. It had given me almost carte blanche in the mall as our viewers racked up, so I could play along with this one. My mind whirred as the gals sent looks at each other and Tam fanned through a dozen credit cards in a semi-surreptitious way. Jean took out two and tossed them into the back seat of the Thunderbird, then pointed at another, which Tam slid out. The rest were tucked back into the wallet, which went into that miraculously over-capable back pocket as Tam went up to the smoking window.
“I don’t suppose you could do a fellow girl a favor, could you?” I premised my idea, trying to find the right words.
Viewers – 326
“That depends on the favor, Sugar,” Jean smirked for more reasons than I wanted to think about. It was a bit of a mind flip for Grace to be Jean, but the wink she gave me confirmed it and made me want Tam back so I could put her between us. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Grace. It was just that she reminded me of darker times that I was trying to forget.
“I was just thinking that if you parked your beautiful car in that parking spot,” and I pointed to a spot right next to the chargers. “Then I could slow charge for the night, and nobody’d get any crazy ideas from the road that my Stella here was an easy mark.”
“I got to charge too, so if you take the spot next to me, that’ll work just fine,” Jean offered easily. “But, I’d need something in return.” My stomach sank as I remembered multi-faceted eyes.
“I can try,” I stammered.
“Relax, Sugar,” Jean chuckled at me, and I felt the threat level dip a bit when she smiled. “I’m not here to shake you down, but if my sister doesn’t get to pet one of those furballs, she’s going to yammer at me all night long.”
I relaxed into a laugh trying and failing to put my trauma behind me. It was a fake relaxed and a brittle laugh, but it was getting better.
“I’m just asking for a good night’s sleep is all,” Jean gave me hangdog eyes that helped a little.
“I can do that,” I assured Jean with a smile. I glanced down at my key card and held up the little packet with my room number on it. “I’m in room thirteen.”
“That’s so lucky,” Tam declared happily. “We’re right next door to you in fifteen.”
“Imagine that,” Jean gave a thin-lipped smile and shake of her head.
“Imagine that,” I said under my breath so that only Jean could hear. “Sounds like Kismet!” I said louder to Tam’s blooming smile. “I don’t suppose you could help me carry these little guys into my room while I hook up to the charger.”
“Oh! Of course!” Tam lit up like her sandy-blond hair was a few shades lighter.
“Hey!” Jean called out indignantly as Tam plucked my keycard out of my hand and chucked theirs at Jean. “Don’t stick me with all the bags!”
Viewers – 343
Jean and I hooked up the charging cables and I was the one to help her carry their bags into their room. Tam dutifully made sure that my adorable companions were set up on their own queen-sized bed with the whole of all the blankets nested up around them like she was mother hen, and they were her chicks. That was okay because it gave Jean and I a chance to bond over our rides and for me to relax a little more organically. This whole rigamarole took a good hour of witty banter that sapped the very last ounce of strength I had left. I begged off and Jean dragged Tam to their room for the night on promises that I’d give their door a tap before I loaded up the next day.