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 Fireworks had been replaced by digital displays like that in Main Street of Vegas and Times Square in New York.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. Joe only remembered it because he loved this old country song about it.

He’d made his way out of the Game Stop and into the candy store. Once again, he didn’t need to enter the store itself. The storeroom held lots of bags of candy that he could use to cushion the precious Switches in his oversized purse. So much for trying to pick up healthy options. Okay, he didn’t mind. His 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 him fat because of his choices. All he had to do was represent the things that his viewers didn’t think they could do in real life, and he could embody their wish-fulfillment fantasies.

The employee hallway emptied out into the food court, but Joe didn’t peek out and check. That would look too suspicious. Like the perfectly behaved kitten in his collar or the curious little noses of the ferrets peeking up out of the back of his hair weren’t suspicious enough. Somehow, he strolled out of that hallway loaded down with loot and instead of walking out the door, he paused to order a burger, fries, and extra-large diet coke with ice. Then he called the cashier back and ordered five extra kid’s burgers and fries off the dollar menu. His cohorts were going to eat well tonight.

“Did you see what happened that made all that noise?” Joe asked the cashier as he slipped a twenty across the counter to pay for his posse’s meals.

“All I saw were two birds come flying up over the food court,” the bored teenager said, handing Joe his change with a shrug. She never even looked up to his face and therefore missed the fact that his entourage was sniffing at the interesting smells that tempted and tantalized him as much as them. That’s why he’d stopped for a takeout meal. “If they shit on the tables, I’m not cleaning that shit up.”

Viewers – 263

“I don’t blame you,” Joe replied, his tone serious, but his 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 him sit down at a table where someone had left half a lunch. He poked the nose of one of the ferrets back over his shoulder with a couple of fries that he’d snagged out of that lunch. The kitten got a bite of burger patty, and he nibbled on a pickle that didn’t look like it had a bite out of it.

“Order up,” the teenager called out. Joe picked up the huge bag with his order in it.

Even as the security guard came around the corner where the commotion had finally died down, he wasn’t looking at or for Joe. He put his shoulder to the exit door’s push handle as he 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 Joe as he 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 Joe wouldn’t get credit for, but he was okay with that. He had stats to assign, pets to feed, and a motel room to find or something to crash in until he could figure out his next move. He kept his eyes scanning the parking lot as he loaded his loot and friends onto and into the Hoverhog. His 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. Joe barely managed to snag his own out of the mix without getting his hand licked off.

Exp +500 (Quest: Escape the Mall. Quest Complete!)

With his loot nestled into the foot-room portion of the sidecar and his brood nested in a feeding frenzy on the seat, which was protected by that gym bag he’d stolen, Joe peeled his own burger out of its wrapper. The parking lot was packed with cars. He fired up the engine on Stella and steered quietly with one hand so that the hog was far from where he’d left the mall. He kept the speed super slow, not even shifting up since he only had one hand and that one was on the handle with the brake. He only moved them to the parking lot of a movie theater nearby, but not too close.

Once settled in the shade of a parking lot tree, Joe leaned back to finish his meal. He considered it quite convenient to have that cup holder for his drink between the sidecar and Stella’s seat. That was the next banner ad they got, thanks to those wonderful little net scuttlers. Joe was trying to find a way to not call them spiders, as he was still a bit raw on arachnids. The banner ad was of him eating his burger, his sneakered feet propped up on one of the handlebars as he 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. Cats 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 Joe with a thought bubble that said “Woof!”

Exp +100 (Click-bait pick-up!)

So, now that Joe wasn’t running for his life or to not get caught, he could take a look some yummy changes that happened as he’d levelled up. The first level-up had given him the viewer count in the upper-right corner of his screen and a few metrics he didn’t understand yet below it. He’d levelled up again, but the only way he really knew that was that he now had a little expandable window below his metrics that would show him 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 his viewer-count. If Joe got this stuff every level, he was going to feel like one of those robot programs with a dozen drone screens taking up most of his peripheral vision.

Joe was surer than ever that he needed to find a place where he could kick back and get through the red door so he could get into his character sheet and boost some stats. He gave his soda one more slurp and strapped on the helmet for safety. Helmets had become semi-invisible in VR, so what he looked like as they barreled down some back roads instead of that insane fast-forward highway, was free-wheeling, hair-flying behind him like a banner, crazy smile on his face that didn’t net him any bugs because it was VR, and, for once, the World AI wasn’t pissed off at him.

They rode through a few cities in a montage of travel pics that left Joe breathless. It wasn’t any better than the highway. He pulled into a gas station that he hoped was enough cities away from his crime spree. He’d pulled off the road because he was dizzy, but as he made motions to pull over, his gas tank suddenly got very low and the place he pulled off spawned a diner, truck stop, and a semi-grungy motel that was making up its mind between rattrap and clean-but-cheap. It settled on clean-but-cheap. Joe shook his head to clear the blurry vision of the set changes.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Joe's sleeping brood woke to poke their curious noses over the dash of the sidecar.

“Well guys?” Joe talked inanely to his pets, who unrealistically seemed to pay attention to his every word. “Think we’ve earned a break?”

The darker of the two ferrets chittered to the other, then looked back at Joe and nodded. It was a good thing he wasn’t eating something, or he’d have choked. The kitten blinked soft, lavender eyes at him as if to say, “Yes, this sounds nice. We should rest here.”

Viewers – 282

Instead of fueling up right away, Joe used the last of his 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. Joe thought they delayed the charge times just to make you buy something, but they didn’t admit that. He 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. Joe 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 pastries in the morning next to the coffee to claim a continental breakfast too. Joe had 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 title. He hadn’t had a chance to charge up his phones, so he’d have to be a walk-in where they would gouge him for whatever they could get out of him.

“How much for a night?” Joe asked on a resigned sigh.

“Twenty-two-fifty, plus tax and fees,” the abnormally red-haired woman muttered at him around the cigarette clenched in her teeth.

Joe handed over two twenties, pleasantly surprised by the old-fashioned prices. Then he realized the motel was one that dotted the real world. Product placement again? Was he 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 Joe’s change out to him.

“I gave you forty bucks,” Joe protested as he saw the nickel and keycard she handed him.

“Fees,” she spat out and slid the window closed.

“Fees,” Joe nodded, resigned again. That was closer to what he’d expected. He 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 they really promoting cigarettes and this motel chain or were they dissing them until they paid them to speak better of them? Eh, what did Joe care?

He passed a Black Thunderbird in the stall next to where he’d parked Stella and was a little shocked to find that his pets had gained some fans. One woman sat in the driver’s seat of the Thunderbird, while the other was crouched next to Joe’s 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 Joe would have loved to steal. Not that even he 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 Joe leaned his hip against his Hoverhog and watched. “Tami.”

“Shhh! Jean,” Tami waved behind her back to the driver. “You’ll spook them.”

“It’s okay, Jean,” Joe gave what he hoped was a casual and amused shrug.

“Ack!” Tami fell back on her tush in such a cute way that Joe felt temptation deep in his stomach.

“It isn’t that they don’t like you, but they’re probably full from lunch,” Joe explained, offering a hand to help her up, even as the blacker of the ferrets stole the Cheeto out of her hand, making them all laugh. Well, Tami laughed, Joe snickered, and Jean gave a sideways smile complete with just a little huff.

“Sorry, they’re just too cute.” Tami took Joe’s hand with a flirtatious smile and let him help her up. Joe was too much of a klutz for a flirtatious smile, but Tami seemed to do it naturally.

“No worries,” Joe brushed off her apology as she brushed off the back of her perfectly fitting jeans that framed a perfect… well, hadn’t he said he wasn’t interested in romance with an AI? He took a breath and blew it out, running his hand through his hair. He was human and she was cute and that was enough for his body, even if his mind was a little slower on the uptake.

Viewers – 312

“Tam,” Jean broke their tension easily. “We should leave the nice man alone and get a room.”

“Which credit card are we using?” Tam asked, reaching in her back pocket for a wallet Joe 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 Joe.

Then it hit him who they were, and he rolled his eyes at the World AI. Okay, he could take a hint. If it was going to throw these gals at him, he would play along until he could ditch them. The World AI had given him almost carte blanche in the mall as their viewers racked up, so he could play along with this one. His 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 guy a favor, could you?” Joe premised his idea, trying to find the right words.

Viewers – 326

“That depends on the favor, Sugar,” Jean smirked for more reasons than Joe wanted to think about. It was a bit of a mind flip for Grace to be Jean, but the wink she gave him seemed to confirm it and made Joe want Tam back so he could put her between them. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Grace. It was just that she reminded him of darker times that he was trying to forget. Was Jean Grace?

“I was just thinking that if you parked your beautiful car in that parking spot,” and Joe 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.” Joe's stomach sank as he remembered multi-faceted eyes.

“I can try,” Joe tried and failed to smirk.

“Relax, Sugar,” Jean chuckled at him, and he 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.”

That startled a laugh out of him, so Joe relaxed into it. 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 Joe hangdog eyes that helped a little.

“I can do that,” Joe assured Jean with a smile that finally looked less like Dexter and more like Poindexter. He glanced down at his key card and held up the little packet with his 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,” Joe said under his breath so that only Jean could hear. “Sounds like Kismet!” he 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 Joe’s keycard out of his hand and chucked theirs at Jean. “Don’t stick me with all the bags!”

Viewers – 343

Jean and Joe hooked up the charging cables and Joe was the one to help her carry their bags into their room. Tam dutifully made sure that Joe’s 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 Joe a chance to bond over their rides and for Joe to relax a little more organically. This whole rigamarole took a good hour of witty banter that sapped the very last ounce of strength Joe had left. He begged off a dinner invitation, and Jean dragged Tam to their room for the night on the promise that Joe’d give their door a tap before he loaded up the next day.