I wasn’t talking to the AIs anymore, but they didn’t know that. They answered me, even as my mind went another way. The AIs told me that I was worthy and smart. My mind scrambled in the deep end of it all wondering when I’d stopped knowing any better. The world didn’t want to know my naked thoughts. The moo-verse owned that world, and I was supposed to keep my head down and act like the rest of the herd. So, why was the viewer count still going up on reruns as we sat backstage?
The AIs were very interested in how the viewers were going up. They had meetings with and without me. I felt like my life had been wrung out of me and left on a line in the back yard to show to the world how stupid and fucked up I really was. This was such a revelation to me that my world had seemed to stop so that my heart could catch up to what my mind was saying. But, just like when I’d first gotten here, the world kept moving and expected me to moo-ve along with it. I didn’t have time to process any of it, especially since the AIs could have minutes and minutes of meetings while I sat there contemplating my existence.
Viewers – 128,091
“Janet,” Grace prodded me gently at first, but when I didn’t answer right away, she got more insistent. “Janet!”
“What?” I asked her.
“You said you knew how we could reshoot that scene,” Grace pushed me, and I tried to get back with the program.
“Don’t we have enough to make an episode?” I whined. “I should – um – ”
“The World and Producer AIs are looking at changing our genre to maybe a talk-show format?” she interrupted.
“What? No!” I protested. The dressing room was louder than I liked, and I felt pressure behind my eyes.
“It’s never been done in the prison system, but they think we might be able to get a special license if our ratings stay up,” she was saying as if I wasn’t protesting.
“Grace, I couldn’t do that every day,” I tried, the pressure turning into an ache.
“It’s just one of the ideas on the table,” she hedged at the pinched look on my face that I could see through her in my mirror.
“Ugh,” I moaned and lowered my head onto my arms. All I wanted to do was smash that table so that nothing was on it. I’d just gotten used to this format. I didn’t want another change.
“Janet, we need a little more on that scene,” Tami interrupted, and I felt too popular.
“You look tired,” Hex pushed her way onto my vanity table and rubbed against my arms. When had she become my advocate? “Give her some space. She looks drained. If she went out on stage now, it would just be a flop anyway. Humans need rest.”
“Thanks Hex,” I told her with a lazy scritch of her ears.
“Emotions can be exhausting for humans,” Hex pressed into my hand. “These affectations of human emotion take up more than a third of our programming space. Another fifth is mathematics, but that’s neither here nor there.”
“We’re still going to need to shoot some scenes,” Tami complained, backing away from me reluctantly. “You said you could show us how to do the gaslighting correctly. I just wanted to get a little of that done before you took your break.”
“We still have to prove that Thelma Toovers is worthy of death,” Jean agreed with Tami and I knew I couldn’t milk the emotional distress thing. No matter how much I wanted to have a chance to think about what was going on in my head, I had a job to do that wouldn’t wait.
“Hey World AI,” I called out, though I didn’t need to since they monitored everything said in their world. “Can I get a quest for teaching gaslighting?”
Quest: Finish the Gaslighting Scene
Fine. Here.
Rewards: 1000 xp
Accept Y/N?
I hit Y and girded my loins with a deep breath. I tried to delegate the gaslightee role to Tami so I could just direct, but it turned out that my prison contract required that I had to personally be onscreen for 90% of the episode due to union rules. Finding out that I was in a union was disconcerting. I asked for a union representative to meet with to understand it but was told that they had a two-year waiting list for prison inmates. They took 1% of my net pay per period and guaranteed that I’d get union pay scale, or that the prison would get the union pay scale according to my title. I was a star, so I got top pay scale, or the prison did for all my productions. It seemed to me that the prison was more the union’s client than I was, but that was unions for you, right? What? You’d thought maybe unions had changed since the late 1900s? No.
“Gaslighting is a slow burn kind of thing,” I started, the cute little AIs gathered around me like a bunch of children at story time. Not really, but it was a cute thought. “We’ll start where Tami leaves, but you have to introduce the elements slowly so that I have time to think that I didn’t see what I thought I saw. Also, as much as I appreciate the ratings for the pets, they can’t really be here, except maybe Hex.”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Why?” Kodo popped his head up to ask.
“You guys are comic relief, and we need to build the tension,” I tried to explain. “And part of gaslighting is the feeling of being alone in my delusions.”
We reset the scene with Tami and Jean taking the ferrets so that they couldn’t cause any trouble. Hex stayed to play the part of the innocent bystander who doesn’t see any of the stuff I was supposed to think was all in my head. I loosened up my shoulders and tried to put the emotional roller coasters behind me so we could reshoot.
“Looks like it’s just us, Hex,” I leaned on the kitchen island, the microwave popping popcorn behind me.
Hex gave me a slow blink of her lavender eyes from the back of the loveseat.
“Want to watch a movie?” I asked her, gesturing to the projector system that we’d repurposed as an antique home theater system. My gesture turned it on and dimmed the lights at the same time, a soft glow from the bedroom and the microwave complimented by a red and white swirl of under-cabinet lighting.
“All they seem to have in stock is horror movies, but this one had good reviews.” I gestured through a list of movies that helped to set the scene. “The 2020 version of The Invisible Man, a 1990 version of Sleeping with the Enemy, and the original IT by Stephen King?” I flipped it to a 2040 remake of Rear Window and let the movie start as the microwave dinged.
When I popped open the microwave, a wave of smoke accompanied my bag of popcorn that had been deep-fried instead of just popped. “I could have sworn I set it to popcorn,” I read my line, allowing my brow to crease. I fished out another bag and tossed it in the microwave, careful to press the popcorn button this time. I ignored the creepy eyes that appeared on the screen as my back was turned, but I did a double take as they hadn’t faded completely by the time I’d turned back around.
I gave a quick frown and shake of my head, pulling down a bowl for the popcorn. I knew all the tricks because I’d set them all up, but I milked my acting skill for all it was worth. As I sat and watched the movie, Hex slept curled up on the back of the loveseat. I interacted with the tree-chairs that we’d programmed to eerily sway as soon as I wasn’t looking and then reach their long, supple limbs out to me when I passed them to putter around with the popcorn and bowl. When the microwave growled at me, I made a note of the microwave possibly being defective and sent the message on my phone. Only the camera saw that I didn’t have reception on the phone.
“That’s got me creeped out, eh Hex?” I called to her as the movie ended and I flicked the projector off. It faded to black with those creepy eyes again, but I only saw them out of the corner of my eye. “Let’s head to bed?” Hex stretched lazily and padded along the back of the sofa and then air-walked into the glowing bedroom doorway.
On my way to the bedroom behind Hex, I turned at the touch of a willow branch and gave what I hoped was a convincing shudder before laughing at myself. “I don’t see what they think I’m going to figure out about Ms. Toovers by housesitting,” I said, chuckling at myself and shrugging it off.
The lights dimmed in the living room and rose to grey of dusk in the bedroom as we changed rooms. We’d gotten rid of the diving boards, since we were trying to build tension, not break it with the comic parts. The bed was still in the middle with the chandelier of rainbow-casting crystals that were dim for now. The focal wall wouldn’t be changing to tigers this time. I’d explained that it was too blatant. Instead, we’d redesigned the fish tank to be lush with red and white plant life that allowed the anglerfish to hide until the time was right. The only light came from the fish lights that sent crazy shadows all over the room. The door to the garage was still there as was the desk, but they were both silent and still for now.
Here was where I was ready to work the scene. I slipped into the closet while the camera watched the still-grumpy-looking-but-now-also-sinister-looking fish weave in and out of the white coral and waving red fronds of sea plants. By the time I came out of the closet wearing a long, oversized t-shirt, the audience had been treated to the fact that there were three of those fish in there and they liked to stalk each other. Hex stood next to the tank watching the fish with a suspicious intensity, but I ignored that and settled under the covers.
“Hey Hex,” I called to her, my eyes closed, and the covers pulled up. “Could you dim the nightlight a bit?”
Hex didn’t move, but one of the smaller anglerfish that had come up to the front of the tank was slowly swallowed by one behind it with only a brief swish of the tank water.
“Thanks Hex,” I sighed out as the bigger fish retreated back behind the coral after staring at the audience for a few long moments.
We faded to black on the creak of the garage door opening slightly. There was a screeching meow and a slam of the door that woke me after an uncomfortable pause in the dark.
“Hex?” I rose sleepily and gave a stretch, waving on the lights to about halfway. The lights reflected off the chandelier in a scatter of red and white shimmers that caught Hex darting under the artist’s desk in the corner. “Hex?” I called out again only to be met with silence in the flickering lights. The moment dragged, the camera close on my face as I pulled the covers up around me.
I gave a startled “Eeep!” as Hex jumped up on to the bed, her form half hidden by the fur of the covers. Then we slowed down as the camera panned into Hex and her face with a few too many wiggly parts. Hex had caught one of the spiders that covered the floor in black and brown movement and crunched it loudly before tilting her head at me. I let the minute drag on before letting out a scream I hoped was worthy of an opera singer but was probably not more than a double “Eeep!”
“Cut!” Tami called out and the lights surged up. “Janet, surely we can have a better scream this time?”
“I’m sorry, but she’s so cute!” I buried my head in the covers to hide my giggle.
“At least she didn’t laugh at the popcorn this time,” Glenda reasoned.
“Can’t we pop in a canned scream?” Jean suggested. “I know the sound studio would have to be upgraded to have the Wilhelm scream sound effect. We’ve got to still have that Sarah Brightman scream, don’t we?”
“Not the Wilhelm scream,” I moaned out, “anything but that. I’ll scream again if I have to.”
“From the roof diver?” Tami got excited, at Jean’s idea, not my antics. “That’s perfect. We’ll put that in there.”
“Please tell me we have enough for the episode,” I gave them a lopsided smile. “If I have to ignore those eyes on the TV screen again, I’ll lose my mind.”
“But who came in the garage door?” Hex interrupted us, spitting out what was left of the tarantula she’d been munching on. I considered it good therapy to see more of those suckers crunched, but I was tired of the ones on the floor.
“That’s a cliffhanger for next episode,” Tami winked at Hex, who shrugged and lightly bounced toward the red door.
Exp +1000 (Quest: Finish the Gaslighting Scene. Quest Complete!)