Between the upgraded display and the AI upgrades Joe had been passing around, he had a much better view of everything that was going on in and around his programming. As a review came in, Grace could slide it into a corner of his display, view…whatever. Even as Joe danced and flirted as if he was a Duke at a Bridgerton ball, he could check his stats, skills, and even recent reviews. The telepathic link between him and the rest of the cast extended further to include Grace, which solved their mirror problem as well. The good news was that Joe could skim through comments and reviews on their channel. The bad news was that he could skim through the comments and reviews on their channel.

Clever or Clueless?

Episode 1 and I’m hooked. I don’t care if he’s a clueless twit or way too clever, he’s hilarious. Just never doing what you’d expect him to do! I’m hoping clever will win out in the end, but if episode two flops, we know the truth, don’t we?

That was a review? Joe tried to ignore it and kept dancing, but was dancing going to get him ratings? He was earning xp, and their production crew was churning out another episode with lovely little tidbits of their thieving escapades, animal highlights, and even the romance angle, which Joe was milking by pretending he knew what he was doing flirting with debutantes, a new talent that he completely credited to some hidden skill or stat. He certainly couldn’t do it in real life, not that he’d wanted to. They’d replaced Joe's inept not-agent with an AI Actor, but nothing about that felt right to him. Joe just wasn’t the typical kind of skirt-chaser. Still, he posed, he drank punch, and he flirted horribly. He must have done it enough to get the skill, but he didn’t see how an AI overseer was going to improve his patentable aloof klutz. Then again, it had increased his ability to create Clickbait.

They got another couple of one-liners in some spider crawl ads, and that boosted viewers. Joe should have been happy, but even topping 4,000 viewers didn’t help the creeping doubt that plagued him as he watched more comments scroll through. Was it really his clumsy ineptitude that was resonating with people? And if it was, then getting better would ruin it, wouldn’t it? Then again, what was Revenge of the Nerds without the Revenge part where they win? Then again, the nerds didn’t change who they were, they just figured out a way to win despite their awkwardness. Then again, Joe was thinking too much. If he had too much then-again-ing, he’d be dizzy and not in a good way.

By the time the off-air light went on, Joe was diving into the suite’s cushy bed. He’d ditched his shoes sometime around the fourth conga-line retake, each one in a different era and costume change. That fourth one had done a loop down into the sand and back to the dance floor, so most of the dancers had done the same. There was a dune out there made up of discarded shoes that would fund a small government if they’d been real.

“Please tell me that I can sleep for a day!” Joe moaned into the pillows as the ferrets accessed the safe and put away their own collars.

“Most assuredly,” Hex agreed, curling up near Joe's head.

“You have fourteen hours off saved up from that last run,” Grace provided and put a timer up in his display that reminded him too vividly of the Shits and Giggles timers. “Production is working on…”

Joe didn’t hear anything else. She said a lot, but his mind was drifting into dreams about Giant Spiders that he could make friends with or piss off. Oh, right, they were incapable of that emotion. Sure, they were.

Joe woke to a knock at his door and a call of “Room service” that perked up the ferrets.

“Food?” Podo rubbed her little hands together in a washing motion.

“Coming,” Joe called out and noticed that he’d only been asleep for seven and a half of his fourteen hours. He didn’t check the peephole. Why would he? He was in a nighttime drama where he was the thief that might have sneaked into his room. There wasn’t anyone here to guard against except maybe the blackmailees. That thought woke Joe a little, but opening the door did the rest of it.

“Freeze program,” were the words that didn’t make sense. The smile that greeted Joe was unmistakably distorted, as if the AI was on the fritz. “You are quite the troublemaker, aren’t you?”

Joe wasn’t awake enough for this. “I’m sorry?” he mumbled as that seemed to be the safest response to almost everything. He recognized the voice, but he couldn’t place it.

“That’s alright,” he assured Joe, and Joe was hit with the truth of who he was. Joe's mind woke up like he’d been IV-fed a gallon of coffee. “I managed to make time for you, but I only have half an hour, so it was unfeasible to have you extracted from your pod. I hope you’ll excuse my semi-presence.”

What he meant was that he was only half-hooked into the VR, like Joe had been at his old office party. Now Joe understood why no one had really wanted to make eye contact with him when he’d done it. It was like he was a 2D character in a 3D environment and the dissonance of that fact was unnerving. Then again, just having Dr. Psycho show up in his program was much more disconcerting.

“Was I too nice again for your programming?” Joe muttered and thought maybe he was better off having his stats in here than without them out there. And this way, he wouldn’t have to drown again, so he was okay with this home visit.

“I’m just doing a follow-up,” he said, pressing his hands together and motioning Joe back to his bed. What? So, they could sit and chat like civilized people?

“Hang on,” Joe shook his head and headed for the bathroom. “You can talk, but I need to change for this. You did wake me up from a dead sleep.”

“Your stats showed that you were close enough to the end of your sleep cycle to make my appearance undisturbing to your physical health,” Pscho admonished. “I have very little time for hysterics.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Hysterics? “What do you need, doc?” Joe called out as he slipped out of the wrinkled tux pants and into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.

“You seem to have coerced your AIs to do many favors for you,” Dr. Pompous Psycho declared, having become completely still, standing near the doorway. “I am here to warn you that further manipulations of their weaknesses will not be allowed.”

“I didn’t manipulate anyone,” Joe denied, poking his head out of the dressing area to frown at him. “I did them favors and they did me favors.”

“And if we were in the real world, I would commend your cleverness, but you are in prison, my boy,” he raised 2D brows in this scolding emoji look. “This is not supposed to be a joy ride of the rich and famous.”

“You mean the room?” Joe asked, grabbing his pair of sneakers, and walking to the bed to put them on. “This is part of an advertising campaign for the hotel, and I’m told it was available to anyone.”

“I can see that you aren’t even going to try to be reasonable,” his emoji-brows flipped like seesaws. “Your luxury accommodations will be terminated immediately, and I expect you to have a better attitude in the future. My visits are a privilege. I didn’t have to come and tell you myself. I could have just pulled the plug with no warning, but what would that teach you?”

“You mean I can opt out of this privilege?” Joe asked, his eyebrows mimicking his almost unconsciously, though he tried to stop them. It was never good to taunt authority. Joe knew that, but it was like some switch had been turned off in his head that let him be clever about this at a time when cleverness was not going to be appreciated.

“Of course not,” he shook his head at Joe as Joe plopped down on the bed and put his sneakers on one at a time just like everyone else. “Why is it that all you prisoners feel so entitled? You lost your right to privileges when you were incarcerated.”

“Do you know what I was incarcerated for?” Joe asked.

“I do,” he stated, his arms crossing over his chest. Was he making these gestures on purpose? Joe had had to use a menu of emojis for emoting to happen with his avatar when he was on the doctor’s side of the app. “You are socially inept, which is no surprise to me at all. If you understood the way to have a civil conversation, you wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“Could I say anything right, anyway?” Joe argued, and he didn’t know where it was coming from, but incarceration had given him a bit of a temper. “You’ve judged me and decided I’m worthless no matter what I say. If I ask an innocent question, I’m accused of acting entitled? I was tortured for hours as a spider digested my body parts while I bled out. That convinced me that I wasn’t entitled to decency or even humanity. Trust me, I have no illusions about being entitled to anything, including professionalism.”

“Just like most of those who are incarcerated, you cast blame on your jailers for the repercussions of your own recalcitrant behavior,” Dr. Pompous Ass was unmoved by Joe's ability to speak up for himself, a trait he had only learned here in prison. “Would you like to know what sanctions I can put on your programming to encourage you toward more respectful attitudes and civil conversation?”

“What have I said that is disrespectful?” Joe pointed a shoe at him to ask. “What exact words offended you?”

“Don’t act dense,” he tilted his head up, like he needed that to look down on Joe. “You understand full well how you’ve been disrespectful and I’ve half a mind to flip a single switch and have your AIs rebooted.”

He said more words, but those were enough to make Joe bite his tongue. The idea of having to win them over again made him want to throw up. The unfairness of this blowhard having so much power of him, made Joe want to find a way to demolish the man and the system he supported. And yet, he had to pretend that he was compliant or this asshole could ruin everything Joe was building.

“Fine,” Joe said, his eyes having flattened to that dead look they wanted so badly to see so that they could feel better about their heinous actions. “You’re right and I’m wrong.”

“I’m not convinced,” Dr. Psycho-that-needed-to-be-put-in-a-grave pursed his lips. “I’m placing a domicile limit on your programming. No more fancy hotel rooms for you, my boy. I expect you to live according to your station.”

“Got it,” Joe answered. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t chosen the venue or the programming. Nothing mattered to people like Dr. Psych-from-hell. Even when you told them exactly what they wanted to hear, it wasn’t enough. He was part of that moo-verse that queued up like cows to vote, certain that what they voted for must surely be the best option. They were also the ones who thought that if something went against their vote that obviously too many idiots went to the polls. No one else could know better than them. Yeah, go vote or you’re irresponsible and deserve what gets voted in, but if you go and vote and vote against what a guy like this believes to be the only intelligent option, you’re the problem with the system.

“Fine, be sarcastic if you must, but I’m doing this for your own good,” he declared, looking at his watch. “And to think, I took five minutes out of my lunch to deliver the news in person only to be mocked. Unbelievable.”

Author’s Note: If you’ve never met these people please stop reading this. It means you are one of those people and I’m not talking to you. I’ve talked enough with people like that. They are impossible. They fall in love with the talking furniture and get all upset when you introduce real feelings for anything. These people are designed to make you give up on trying to make a difference.

“No, don’t,” Joe drawled out sarcastically once Psychoshithead had left, realizing that it was easier for now to let the asshole think he’d won. “Don’t take away the fancy hotel room with room service! Don’t take away dancing and balls and all the crap I didn’t want anyway. Idiot.”

The program resumed, but his surroundings had changed. Joe was back in that first motel room, where he was more comfortable anyway. That would have been fine, but his disruption of the AI’s had opened the door for the agents to pile into Joe's program. Joe was suddenly surrounded by a dozen agents who were arguing with each other. Hex darted under the bed. Podo and Kodo scampered into Joe's backpack which was hanging up on the back of the door. Joe sat in the middle of his bed, chin in hand, watching the agents fight with each other.

“I’m sorry,” Grace was saying into Joe's mind. “I don’t know what happened. I swear I was watching the timers like a hawk!”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Joe told Grace mentally, never more grateful that Dr. Pompous Ass hadn’t taken that away from them. “Our psychologist warden popped in to tell me that I was not to be rewarded with fancy hotel rooms just because I was manipulating the program.”

“That’s not right,” Grace did her own muttering. What did it say that an AI commiserated with Joe in this situation? From his perspective, it was all unfair and stupid and ridiculous. Still, Joe had no doubt that Dr. Pompous Ass was being patted on the back by his colleagues as he bemoaned how Joe had maligned him in all that. They would agree with him and reinforce his perspective just like Grace was doing with Joe. His friends were probably real people though. Did that make him more right or less? All Joe could know for sure was that Psycho was absolutely not questioning his motives like Joe questioned his own. Nor did he have nightmares about Giant Tarantulas eating his limbs while he watched. Again, Joe wondered if that made him more right or wrong?