The Circus Truck

"Before you take a bite, I want you to guess how much energy it took to produce that burger."

Todd's eyes assessed the world's biggest simulated carcass, a demonic singing meat grinder with exposed blades like an uncased turbofan, an industrial-era drive belt, the erratic flywheel on a brightly colored, water-cooled hit-miss engine that laughed, exhausting a candy-like fume.

"Well I'd say you've got another thousand burgers up there so I'd guess about 900 kilowatt hours."

Marks smashed a patty of the coarse, simulated auruch meat onto the griddle and grimaced, "How'd you guess that?"

"Last time I saw your circus you had those 800 kilowatt hour hotdogs, and I know you. You gotta always go that extra mile."

"It ain't easy," Marks sighed. "And there ain't much silver in it these days. I'm glad someone still appreciates the good old-fashioned style."

Todd leaned over, biting into the burger. The depth of effort, the time and energy that went into it definitely added up to something special, something more than the sum of all the machines. He could taste the quadrillion dimensional connections that conceived of the flesh, the machinery that built the meat and tore it apart.

"What a delight, what an absolute delight," Todd talked with his mouth full. "Just to get away from it all for a bit,"

"Ah," Roland smiled warmly, "Kids at home driving you crazy?"

Todd swallowed and looked around the circus. Kids played horseshoes while their parents drank microbrews. "Yeah, sure. I mean, no, I don't have any kids. It's just work you know, the hecklers just won't leave me alone. Kids on the internet, you know."

"Well, we're thin on entertainment these days. Let me pull up some lights, you wanna dance for the people?"

"No, I couldn't. It's been too long. I mean, I'd love to." Midas passed in front of the sun, light through the thin composite circus tent fading for a moment. "But retro is dead, Roland, it's dyin," Todd said it without affect. "It was twenty years ago. There's no money in it, like you said."

The circus truck activated and the meat grinding machine sprung into overdrive. The hit-miss engine spun itself up faster and faster. Pornography screamed from every speaker, holographic projectors came to life with violence, obscenity, and illegal taboo content. Ringleader to this circus of filth and depravity was a caricature of Todd, just as his haters saw him.

"Y'all wanna see muh dancin'?" the drunken image belched and began a few mangled steps only to fall flat on his face as the meat grinding turbine let out a crack like a gunshot and churned to a halt. Children laughed and cried while red-faced parents scrambled to cover their eyes and make a hasty exit. Roland Marks cursed and poked at his truck's control panel, which was unresponsive.

"Deimos turn this damn thing off right now!" Marks yelled repeated commands at his truck as he plunged into the unresponsive machinery at the back of the circus truck.

Todd leaned into the truck, beginning to utter some helpful ideas, but found himself looking down the wrong side of Roland Marks' big iron.

"You son of a bitch bastard, you've ruined my circus and you did it on purpose." Marks yelled over the porno.

Todd gulped and put his hands in the air. There was a sudden shocking silence, although the foul images continued to play out behind him.

"Get out of here before my finger slips and I have to kill you, sicko. Turn around and get out, and don't you ever come back." Turning, Todd felt the barrel of the gun pressed into his back of his head.

"There ain't too many of us left, and I don't think anyone will miss your little show today. You want the big time? You got it. Now don't expect to get away with another little internet prank on any of us retros ever again."

"Man, you think I want this? I'm the victim here, I'm the one-" he felt a sharp pain in the back of his head.

"Get out, stay out, and if you ever come back to my circus, I'll end you! You hear that?"

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The Toddhunters

Gork marched through Retromart, turning her head to scan each aisle as embedded broadcast software streamed the audiovisual feed to what few hungry Todd fans remained after his disappearance. Toddhunting had turned up nothing whatsoever for almost a year now, only a blurry photo from a pinkie tipster just thirty minutes prior.

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The frenetic top speed, minimum safety car ride had Gork a bit wobbly, and in all the excitement she'd lost focus. Rushing ones' art out like this was bad form, but this blurry image had stirred up anomalous activity. Viewership up three hundred percent, a scrolling chat, old videos lighting up. That wasn't too surprising, but as always, it was disappointing to put out such low quality stuff in a rush and succeed when carefully prepared, much better content was buried. But Todd had a cult-like appeal that seemed to be growing from his mysterious absence, and it didn't matter that much. If she could catch even a glimpse of Todd, the scryp would flow.

Upon reaching the emptied clearance shelves at the back of the store, she concluded the hunt was futile. Todd had probably left well before she arrived.

Fully armored and still mounted on a Zed brand motorcycle bristling with activated RGB moxels, Chaz Aelectro's tires screeched into a parking space which blocked Gork at the RetroMart's exit. Through the face shield, he grinned at her in recognition. He raised a finger, signaling a clump of moxels to fling themselves onto the security turrets, disabling them and deploying an induction exploit which extracted the last three hours of footage.

Gork's grey skin crawled, turned reddish, her mechanical iris dilated in the sunlight. "What's a mil-sim junkie like you going to do with content like that? You planning on reacting to it?"

Hand on his hollowsword, always alert for moxel pirates, Chaz nodded, "You know he's carrying an old revolver, right? Little grey lady like you, trying to video him? Todd might just snap, blast your freaky big ears off and tear your eyes right out your face. I've seen it myself, pinkies go crazy like that. But don't worry dear, after all, we're both on the level here, we have look out for one another."

This contemptible thieving gamer was stepping on her toes, ruining the stream. And worse, he'd just beaten her to obtaining the first clear videos of Todd in over six months. Typical macho grey supremacist, every body part reduced but the one that needs reducing. His hideous black and green armor covered in skull stickers, the obsession with hoarding moxels, the compensating sword fetish. This disgusting moron would probably post the raw security footage while yapping away about the make and model of Todd's revolver for a half hour. "Who cares?" she mumbled, brushing past his motorcycle towards her car, parked properly and without the aid of some ridiculous bent computer.

"Sweetheart, you forgot something." Pulsating red and pink, a single moxel slapped onto her car, transferring the security footage to her possession. "I transfer all intellectual property rights to Ms. Georgie Sturgis of 3735 Boxelder Lane, also known as Gork, top editor on PinkTube. Huge fan, by the way." Chaz revved the bike and held the brakes for an absurd burnout, leaving her in a cloud of toxic rubber smoke.

Rather than contemplate the insufferable way grey men flirted, Gork immediately got to work. "Deimos, transpose video prompt utilizing the newly obtained Retromart security footage. The addition of curious or story irrelevant details can be maximized and all shots of Todd's face should remain fleeting for the first third, to build anticipation. Increase anxiety with any closeups of the public reacting to his odd behavior. Exaggerate or fabulate if necessary."

Considering for a moment, she decided to do something she rarely did and work the footage whole cloth. "Replay the entirety of all footage tiled at 3x speed." Yuddies flowed in and out of the Retromart gawking as Gork stood motionless, crafting her video, "Zoom and enhance Todd's shoes, add a denigrating caption. Something about Todd taking up dancing again, maybe entertaining ferals." To Gork's surprise, her imagination became overloaded with possibility, inspiration struck. Her intuition to scan the footage couldn't have been more correct. "Lead the edit with a before and after emphasizing Todd's tattered and dirty rags on entering with his exit in new clothes. Apply the usual retro shaders, heavy glow to heighten the change. Todd is back and badder than ever. Are those ciliated threads? Deimos, list the items Todd purchased."

"Tapdancin' Todd is wearing a red and white Smoky Mountain 100% ciliated plaid shirt, DuoMembrane undergarments and socks, and an unidentified pair of dog leather shoes with spring steel heels. In his shopping cart is a High Plains pack with a self-inflating cold weather shelter and sleeping membranes."

"How much did he spend on all that?"

"Thirty silver, roughly two scryp," the computer responded. "Add a cash register sound at his checkout, maybe a toilet flushing. The audience needs to see this transaction as a breaking point. Follow this with callbacks to moments when Todd soiled his clothing and score it all with something pompous or triumphant, classical music of some kind. Build his return up, he's a changed man, use a slight mocking tone that some viewers might miss. Generate and publish video, set token price at half baseline." Gork thought again about the gross nerd on the bike and half-smiled, "And you know what? Watermark the raw footage with Aelectro's logo and donate it anonymously to the commons. That ought to piss 'em off."

Laughing and then breathing a sigh of relief that the computer had not rejected this long, subtle prompt with some inscrutable alignment issue, Gork moved on to hunting Todd. "Deimos, show all the known locations of feral gatherings in this region."

Hundreds of pink crosses marked the countryside. "Deimos, begin log entry. My initial optimism after finding Todd's trail is still strong in spite of the challenge. Some Yuddie congregations might shoot on sight, and I must just accept that danger. However, I am confident in my ability to, for a time, present myself as a disinterested grey documentarian with a noble savage angle, gaining explicit access to record gatherings on the pretext that I hold them morally superior to greys. This will not be a difficult and is, at best, only half a lie."

"Would you like ten easy steps on how to track down Tapdancin' Todd?"

"No. End log entry," All those locations on the map were, for now, mostly just a distraction from the process. Shopping in the Retromart, Gork gathered up a purple ciliated plaid shirt, DuoMembranes, hiking boots, self-inflating cold weather sleeping membrane, extra large sunglasses, a wig, and a bottle of bronzer.