She was the kind of cute that became really, really hot when you were around it for long enough. For me it took like…a half hour or so. Not sure how long it took everyone else. Hat was skeptical. So was I, but I mean…that didn\u2019t mean I didn\u2019t want her on the team or anything. I could protect her and everything. That\u2019s what I was good at. And it would help to have someone who always knew what was going to happen. That\u2019s what I thought.
\nIt was difficult to argue with the fact that she would be invaluable to the team. At least in theory. She didn\u2019t do much to sell herself to us, but I guess she just sort of…knew that we were going to do what we were going to do and so she knew that we were going to be okay with her being on the team.
\n\u201cI mean…I don\u2019t doubt that she can do what she can do,\u201d Hat said crunching into an apple, \u201cI just don\u2019t think that it\u2019ll add anything for the fans, that\u2019s all.\u201d The whole \u2018fans\u2019 bit was always a bit of a joke, but we WERE gaining a following with subscribers and everything and It was hard to argue with him about that. Yeah, she was hot, but she didn\u2019t dress flashy or anything and she wasn\u2019t exactly engaging. And the way she would lip synch or whisper along with a conversation like it was an old song she\u2019d heard since she was a smaller girl…y\u2019know…kinda spooky. And then there was the general overall sense of slightly whimsical boredom that she seemed to constantly carry about her. Not exactly fun and more than a little easy to feel like a fool there for HER amusement and not ours.
\n\u201cShe\u2019s going to get in the way,\u201d Springfire said with her eyes faintly glowing. \u201cJust because she always knows what\u2019s going to happen…that doesn\u2019t mean that she\u2019s going to help us out with it or anything like that. She doesn\u2019t exactly have to do that. She doesn\u2019t have to care because she already knows whether or not she will.\u201d She had a point. This girl knew what was going to happen like…always. That\u2019s got to be some weird next level consciousness that keeps her from ever really being able to relate to anybody. She can\u2019t engage with other people because she already knows whether or not she will. No genuine connection emotionally so what about empathy? Still…we were already reacting to her like she was what she was saying she was because the assumption even with all the reservations was that she was already a part of the team.
\nThat part made me mad. ALL of us had to prove ourselves at least once before we were on the team. That part made me mad, so I nudged her in a moment of cruelty and told her she\u2019s not on the team. She just chuckled and rolled her eyes. Then leaned-in and kissed me on the cheek before announcing to us all (fans and team alike) that there was about to be an alarm. Would\u2019ve seemed kind of strange if we hadn\u2019t already been introduced to her and…then…kind of weird BECAUSE we met her before and knew that she was acting a lot more showy now. Still…would have kind of been weird if she\u2019d just…said that to mess with us and then sat back down like nothing. I only had a few seconds to think about that before the alarm sounded.
\nWe all scrambled out to the Fringe. Camera drones started to show up right away for subscribers. Platinum subscribers would arrive shortly thereafter in their personal armor. Always did. Didn\u2019t have to know everything that\u2019s going to happen to know about that. Always happened. That\u2019s half of what we were there for. The other half was grinning out of the shadows at us with sharp teeth and little glowing-red eyes. You could hear them breathing. You could feel them surrounding us. A few of them were still decimating a Fringe hovel. Angel and Bash already scrambled out to try to look for survivors. A few cameras followed them, but most people subscribe to see us do our extermination thing.
\nOut in the distance there was the respiration of those little demons that began to sync-up. We always let them do that. Hat says it\u2019s because it lets the subscribers know things are about to start…figures maybe he can get sponsorship or something. \u201cThis creepy pre-fight respiration brought to you by Exit Cola\u201d or whatever. I don\u2019t think it\u2019d ever work. We just fought these little demon things around the edges of everything. It\u2019s not like we were an offensive extermination team or anything like that. It\u2019s not like we were big time. Anyway…they all link their breathing up and fling themselves at us.
\nSwings and slices and bashes and things. The little girl can defend herself. It\u2019s a bit like watching a kung-fu movie with her. Always knws exactly when and where they\u2019re coming as they screech themselves at her with razor talons and teeth and tongues. She was good. No question. Would have to wait until later to get a real good look at what was going on…and then an explosion from the hovel. Something combustible in there and Angel and Bash…can\u2019t lose them, right? Medics are hard to come by. They can take care of themselves best of all. They need to…
\nBut then there\u2019s another explosion and the little girl lights up. Suddenly she\u2019s like…projecting a 3-d holo-imax display of everything that is going to be happening. And we can all see it for one dazzlingly flashy sequence. It\u2019s all like an old Escher painting or something. Time and every possibility s stretching off in between every angle in a weird fractal space and we\u2019re all in the center of it seeing it all exactly the way she does. You can hear the Platinum members freaking out. We all know everything that\u2019s going to happen because we\u2019re near her and she knows there\u2019s danger. Good thing too. Building collapse of the Hovel could have killed Angel and wounded Bash, but we knew exactly when and where to go to pull them out in one piece.
\nFrom there it\u2019s all clean-up and the big Escher fades out. And we\u2019re all laughing. And you close your eyes and you can just FEEL the subscribers exploding. Looks like we\u2019re going big time soon. She puts her arms around me… and tells me that it\u2019s too bad she\u2019s not on the team. Then she winks. It\u2019s pleasantly unsettling. Then there\u2019s the celebration and it all washes away.<\/p>\n
END.
\nBy Russ Bickerstaff
\nRuss Bickerstaff is a theatre critic and author living in Milwaukee, WI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
She was the kind of cute that became really, really hot when you were around it for long enough. For me it took like…a half hour or so. Not sure how long it took everyone else. Hat was skeptical. So was I, but I mean…that didn\u2019t mean I didn\u2019t want her on the team or…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,11,1],"tags":[13,17,18,20,21,28,29,30,56,72,76],"class_list":["post-389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","category-neural-nets-uplinks-and-wetware","category-uncategorized","tag-13","tag-ai","tag-android","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-blade-runner","tag-cyberpunk","tag-cyberpunk-stories","tag-cyborgs","tag-matrix","tag-science-fiction","tag-short-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}