The problem with huddling in bathrooms was that Joe was at the mercy of the bathroom conversation of Soccer-mom’s brood of kids. There were two boys and two girls. Joe could only think that if you shoved the dog in on that equation with a few picket fences you’d have his greatest nightmare. He was assured of that as he listened in to the boys bickering. Soccer-mom and Eye-candy had moved to the door of the bathroom either to keep an eye on him, or to keep an ear out for the kids, while Soccer-mom kept her real eye on Eye-candy. Joe pretended to use one of the urinal cubicles, even as he no longer had those urges since coming to the VR.
Quest: Escape Gomer and the Rest Stop
Can you outrun your past or will your new friends find out who you really are?
Rewards: 200 xp (Bonus 100xp for keeping your criminal nature hidden from new cohorts.)
Automatically Accepted.
Quest: Road Trip!
Find a way to get everyone on the Road Trip together.
Rewards: 100 xp/sidekick.
Accept Y/N?
The World AI was obviously courting Joe to try some plot lines that it could work with. He looked around at his available cohorts and the tempting 100 xp per sidekick and considered it. Then he thought about spending hours in a car with them all and quickly picked No.
Hidden Quest: Give Me Click Bait or I’ll Give You Death!
You heard me! It’s time for more one-liners and I’ll pay you xp for doling them out.
Rewards: 100 xp/one-liner picked up by a spider.
Automatically Accepted.
So much for courting him. Once Joe had chosen No once, it wasn’t about to give him a choice on that one. Fine. Joe was just as interested in making one-liners as the World AI was to make him do them. He wanted out of here and back to… Joe refused to think about how much his old life wasn’t much better. He focused on the lack of sneaky giant tarantulas and let that be the reason he would reluctantly work for the maniacal World AI. Yeah, that was it, he thought in the quietest part of his mind.
“It’s only an apocalypse if the water doesn’t turn on,” one boy was saying, as they washed their hands and the girls, younger than the boys, made faces at each other in the mirror. Joe had edged out of the cubicle only to be confronted with inane child banter, or as approximately so as these AIs could make, which wasn’t all that close.
“But there are no lights,” the other argued, his sister rolling her eyes at her sister. Joe could only wait while they all hogged the sinks. Joe wasn’t at Not-angel’s level of non-sanitary even if it was a VR bathroom. His mom had taught him to wash his hands and he was going to wash his hands.
“Lights can just be a power outage, dummy,” the older of the two boys said, shaking the water from his hands at all his siblings, and Joe as it turned out, since he was trying to edge toward a sink to wash his own hands and maybe some mud off.
“Don’t call your brother names,” Soccer-mom said automatically as if she wasn’t in just as inane of a conversation with Eye-candy. Joe's head popped up in automatic response to the mom-tone. “They do this all the time. Just ignore it.”
“I’m not saying that the lights went out,” the younger boy was saying over the top of the mother they ignored. “I’m saying that there aren’t any lights in here.”
“Of course there are lights,” the older boy scoffed, giving one of the sisters’ braids a tug as they whisper/giggled with the other. “The place would have to be open at night. How would anyone see without lights?”
“But there isn’t a switch is what I’m saying,” the younger boy protested, as the tugged-sister turned to swipe a foot at the older brother’s shin. “And I wasn’t saying it was an apocalypse. I’m saying that the bathroom was ready for the apocalypse. Why you gotta twist it all up like I’m dumb?”
“No kicking your brother,” Soccer-mom put in automatically as Joe watched, wide-eyed. Her eyes were totally engrossed her in conversation with Eye-candy, so how had she seen the kick? Did the AIs understand Mom powers?
It couldn’t be only Joe who felt some odd TERROR at the idea that these kinds of people existed. These were the people who actually went to the polls to vote for AI presidents. These might be AIs but they were based on real people out there in the real world. Those were the people who made Joe absolutely sure that his vote didn’t count. There were herds of these people. They showed up in droves when you tried to go to the grocery store or out to eat and they all wanted to do that exactly when everyone else did it. Not that Joe got to go out to eat, because people like this have the jobs that make it so that they can buy cartloads of food that were in all of last week’s ads, and not in the coupon section like what was in his cart.
Viewers - 5
Joe took his time, washing up and trying to beat the worst of the mud from his clothes. He was not trying to impress the AI version of Eye-candy. He had a mom who had taught him right. At least the mud was drying. Who was he kidding? Joe didn’t care about the mud. He just didn’t want Soccer-mom to use her eagle eyes on him while he was dodging Gomer. The kids had a little water fight even as Soccer-mom warned them to stop, and Joe pretended to be unmoved by the whole thing. The AIs did mom-voice really well.
“I’m counting,” Soccer-mom said, and Joe's insides clenched. “One!” They obviously knew something he didn’t know because the kids paid her no mind at all. “Two!” And she said it without even looking. Maybe they knew she was all bark. “Three!”
Joe was caught innocently shaking out his hands as they had all stopped like it was a red light in Squid Games. Soccer-mom raised a brow at him and shuffled her kids out under wings of superiority that just cemented everything Joe had thought of her before. It wasn’t his fault that there weren’t any hand-drying machines that worked. Eye-candy shot Joe a conspiratorial wink that made his stomach flip despite his intellectual lack of interest. What? She was pretty. Very pretty and she was the kind of girl that he really wanted to take home to meet mom.
Quest: Steal a Girlfriend from your Girlfriend!
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Which one of you will get the girl?
Rewards: 200 xp and a girlfriend with a car.
Automatically Accepted.
Now that they’d left, and Joe no longer had to fake cleaning up, he put his back to the wall near the doorway to listen for what was going on. With the metal covering over the rest stop picnic tables and the cement-brick walls of the restrooms that, Joe had to admit, had been built to withstand the apocalypse, there was an echo that told him everything that he needed to know. His co-stars were covering for him by continuing their inane banter, not that he thought they were doing it on purpose. Those kids though, they were the perfect cover for anything. Joe would almost put up with Soccer-mom if he could have those kids for distraction purposes. He’d be able to steal the crown jewels with them around.
At the roar of an engine, Joe peeked out, but it wasn’t Gomer’s truck yet. It was a hover version of a Harley, complete with vintage sidecar. They had figured out how to make silent hovercraft, but Harley enthusiasts had insisted that it wasn’t the same, so the roar was actually a sound effect. This woman, who was pulling off her helmet and chucking it into the sidecar, must have modified the soundbox because it was way louder than road regulations allowed. The woman spat on the ground and swung her hair out and around like a shampoo commercial.
Joe had to shake his head to remind himself that he was in a simulation. It wasn’t like he’d never dated. He wasn’t a total dork. He’d had his share of bad girls, and that share was ONE. She’d been a pretender, which is why it had lasted as long as it had, which was half a night. She’d had a bike like that. It had broken down. That was when Joe had realized she’d rented it to try to get guys. The AAA mechanic who had come out to take care of it had been more fun that night, and that relationship had lasted until she figured out that she was too good for Joe. That sexy mechanic had moved on to a guy that only loved her for the bikes she fixed up. Joe couldn’t blame them. That’s why he’d loved her.
On her way to the women’s restroom, Biker-chick parted the sea of cohorts like Moses. Joe shot a look at the bike, and another at Gomer, who was underneath Not-angel’s car fastening stuff. The boys were edging over to where they could get a better look at the Hoverhog. The girls were whispering behind their hands to each other. Not-angel was watching Biker-chick walk away, showing that he swung both ways. Eye-candy was distracting Soccer-mom. And here Joe was, with a quick escape if he dared.
Joe stared at the mirror and had a long conversation with the wimp that existed in the back of his mind. There were two options, riding in that SUC (not a typo) with this banal band of cohorts or doing something insane. Insane had worked for him last time. At least it had worked until Gomer had showed up at this rest-stop cattle call of costars. Telling his reflection to get a spine, he called to Grace or the World AI or God if He was listening. “I need Biker-chick to have left her keys in the motorcycle.”
You’re kidding…
“Nope,” Joe took a few bracing breaths. “Either you put the keys in the Harley or have Biker-chick be my next tarantula.”
That’s…
“Good ratings,” Joe promised like an old clock from the Beauty and the Beast movie. Then he stole a meme and went for it. “Someone once told me you start off with a full bag of luck and an empty bag of experience. I’m just hoping I don’t run out of luck before I get enough experience to get me out of this place.” It wasn’t a one-liner. It didn’t count. It never aired. Ever.
But the co-stars!!! I gave you xp for those costars!!
It was no use. Joe was halfway to the Hog of his dreams, backpack clutched to his chest and sneakers adeptly dodging the gawking boys, when the World AI decided to throw in with him instead of against him, for once. Joe slung his backpack toward the sidecar and pumped his arms, his butt clenched, his longish bangs flipping away from his face, mud flaking off his jeans, and a look of pure terror on his face.
Fine, if I can’t beat you into submission, maybe a carrot will do…
Quest: Steal a Hoverhog!
If you’re going to trade a bunch of perfectly good costars for a hovercycle, then you’re going to have to talk to it or something. I’m not awarding quest rewards until you talk to the bike.
Rewards: 300 xp and a ride.
Automatically Accepted.
That was the picture that the spiders picked up to run with his previous one-liner, “Golllleee, it looks like you needed more than a bell, Gomer,”
Viewers – 7
Exp +100 (Click-bait pick-up!)
“Come on Baby, show Papa some love,” Joe said, as he reached beneath the bike and pretended to fiddle with the wires. He was trying to make it look good for the cameras. With his other hand, hidden by his chest, if the Camera AIs were doing their jobs right, Joe turned the key and the hog roared to life to the stunned faces of every person gathered at the cattle call. Joe was a little ashamed of the one-liner vomit that came next, but 100 xp was 100 xp and he was looking to finally level.
“Nobody sits Baby in the corner,” Joe said and caught the sight of Soccer-mom scolding her boys (who perfectly bracketed her face) but looked up at the roar of the bike with a moue of shock while the boys gaped in awe. Click.
“Let’s blow this gin joint, Baby,” Joe quipped awkwardly as Bombshell looked like he’d challenged Death to a duel. Click.
“I think I’m going to call you Stella,” Joe decided out loud. Eye-candy started out with a look of shock that morphed quickly into a teeth-sparkling grin, complete with thumbs up.
“We want magic, don’t we Stella,” Joe tried and failed to quote Streetcar, the Soccer-mom’s girls pulling off mirrored versions of Home Alone. “We’ve had this date with each other from the beginning.”
In response to Joe's desperate grasp for one-liners and the Writer AIs desperate grasp for viewers, the name “Stella, Baby” engraved itself in gold onto the black gas tank of the Hoverhog. Great, they’d named his co-star.
“Really?” Joe muttered under his breath, but moved his arm out of the way so the camera could pan over the name. At this same moment Not-angel and Gomer were head-to-head as Gomer poked his head out from under the broken-down car. At first Gomer looked confused, but then there was a bloom of anger that was punctuated with a bell sound.
Viewers – 11
They got a banner. The banner scrolled through the shocked faces to the sound of the hog purring and ended on Gomer as a bell went off and Joe's voiced-over one-liner rang out with it. Those who tuned in fast enough were treated to a slow-motion replay of the camera panning from Joe's panicked face, through the shock of the cohorts, and finally settling on Biker-chick’s fury as Joe didn’t bother backing up, but rather bounced up over the sidewalk and nearly unseated himself barely missing the kids and Soccer-mom. Somehow, the Hoverhog managed to climb the brick bathroom walls, skated inanely up over the metal sun-cover for the picnic tables and then sailed impossibly through the air in a beeline for the onramp to the highway. It faded out to a view of Biker-chick’s tight ass chasing Joe on foot as he sailed over her head, her bulging-muscled arm shaking over her head and fire coming out of her mouth.
“Stellllllllaaaaaa!” And Joe was suddenly upstaged by a walk-on! Joe wouldn’t get any credit for it, but they got another Clickbait ad of Biker-chick’s face as she reached toward Joe and Stella as they hit the road. None of Joe's other one-liners made the cut. They even blurred out his backward flip-off, but the blurred-out photo was what made the ads.
Viewers - 23
Exp +300 (Steal a Hoverhog Quest Complete!)
Exp +200 (Escape Gomer and the Rest Stop Quest Complete!)
Quest: Get 100 Viewers!
This is a viewer-hidden quest.
Rewards: 1000 xp and a break.
Automatically Accepted.
Viewers - 39
Quest: Get a Co-star that is Alive!
You can’t just talk to a motorcycle and we need dialogue, you lunatic!
Rewards: 200 xp
Automatically Accepted.
Viewers - 45
“Way to strong-arm my compliance the moment I managed to do something right,” he thought at the World AI. Joe kept his eyes on the road even as the notifications scrolled by. He’d leveled! Joe wanted to stop and look and plan, but he was on this Hoverhog in the middle of the highway and places were speeding past like everything had gone to fast-forward. He should have felt completely carefree, and when they did the cuts for that scene, he would look that way. Instead, Joe was sporting a brand-new look of consternation as he wondered how to stop this damn thing!