You lean back in your chair.

There's internet archival services that "screenshot" pages on different dates. If a news article or other website's been edited or deleted, you should be able to see the original with one of those.

You do a quick search, and find three archival sites.

You run the missing articles through them.

You get the full version of Mayor's Secretary Detained After Altercation With MondolGroup. It's... pretty straightforward, if a little light on details. Rill Parsons' secretary, Temperance Walsh, got into... a straight up fist fight with several MondolGroup employees, including three members of their police force. Neither Mondol nor the mayor's office chose to comment.

...Though you're pretty sure you can figure out why this article was scrubbed.

Several Mondol employees including three cops? Either Temperance Walsh is a stone cold badass, or this is a really embarrassing story for Mondol's police. You're pretty curious what would cause a secretary to come out swinging like that, but the article doesn't say what the disagreement was over--only that they eventually subdued and detained said secretary. MondolGroup probably did some flexing to get the story pulled.

The other deleted article, Mayor's Office Receives Visit From Federal Agents... is nowhere to be found. You try three different websites, and none of them have the page archived. Those sites use bots to screenshot pages automatically, by the hour, every day; there's no way they just missed the page.

Someone had to be very, very thorough covering their tracks, thorough enough to have the article deleted even from internet archiving services.

You do a quick search--how easy would it be to have a page deleted from archiving?

...Oh, all you have to do is send an e-mail to request the deletion.

That's still more work to hide it than the other article got, though. It was probably Mondol who had the secretary story scrubbed, and they did a sloppy job of it--so the federal visit story was probably covered up by someone else. Someone a little more tech savvy, maybe with something juicier to hide. The mayor's office? ...Or the feds themselves?

Hmm.

You do some random searches for the town in general.

It's not much. All local news, mostly about things like new stores popping up, or the new library being built... political stuff... fundraisers... and the numerous expansions of MondolGroup.

Hm.

You do a quick search for Mondol.

They started on the west coast, where their business model failed to take off, so they headed inland and started building in smaller towns. They operate MondolMalls, which are massive structures containing a bunch of smaller Mondol-owned businesses, and MondolMarts, which are just convenience stores. The regular, day-to-day employees are hired locally, but all upper management for each Mondol installation is brought in from outside (so Mondol is managed by "only the best," says one website).

MondolGroup is still pretty small, mostly operating in about three states (including Misuschaqua), but they've been expanding with almost record speed--accomplishing in less than three years what many companies took five to ten years to reach. Part of this is capitalizing on an economic vacuum; a lot of older, bigger and more widespread corporations have been getting shut down in rapid succession for a variety of reasons.

MondolGroup, being small and new, has been flying under the radar and keeping their head down while bigger companies crash around them. Mondol then feasts on the remains, stepping in as their more powerful competitors step out. This town, specifically, had Mondol swing in around the same time that the local All-Mart, Deepfish Eatery, Ottomagic Automotive, and Hasty Entertainment franchises were closing shop or on the way toward it. Four companies out, MondolMall in.

(You rabbithole a little bit, looking into where those four companies went. All-Mart was an international chain whose business practices included some heavy mistreatment of engineered people, practices that are now illegal. All-Mart's now going through a brand reflavoring and mostly sticking to foreign soil. Deepfish Eatery, a franchise restaurant in most of the southern states, had to pack it up after a reporter exposed where their fish came from. Ottomagic Automotive was busted for tax fraud, and Hasty Entertainment was already struggling to adapt to evolving media when their CEO got ousted as a pedophile.)

Even with all that going on, though, MondolGroup's rising faster than other similar vulture corporations. Critics say MondolGroup's own practices are pretty unethical, they're just doing the bare minimum to not be obviously illegal; if the noose keeps tightening and more laws get passed, Mondol's going to have a fight on its hands. Analysts are still trying to figure out what, exactly, MondolGroup's "secret sauce" is--why is it succeeding, while others of its breed are stumbling or failing outright?

It's not just ruthlessness, say experts. Once you hit a certain income threshold, every company is ruthless.

It may have something to do with the company's hierarchy, which is mentioned as being... unorthodox. No further details are given, though you do notice that no single head or CEO or president or whatever is ever named. You read through a plethora of articles, and you still come out unsure if there is or isn't in fact one guy named Mondol running it all. You take a moment to think.

It's about 3:00 pm now; the concert's at 9:00 pm.

You think you can squeeze in a short video, mostly to gather ideas for games to play later, and still have time to get cleaned up for the concert. You make mental notes to ask around town more about the mayor, and to maybe look into better cybersecurity; if there's really someone out there trying to cover up the truth, they might come after you for looking into it.

You mostly make your video out of old and unused clips from previous videos, but you record new audio over it--basically talking about the variety and sheer power of characters in different video games, and asking people to comment on their favorite powers from various franchises. Aside from encouraging people to interact with your videos (and thus drumming up their numbers for the bizarre algorithms online videos are sorted by), this could also give you some ideas for what abilities to try and bring into the dungeon. While the video uploads, you take a shower.

While in the shower, you mull over your clothing situation. You do have a few other sets of clean clothes--which is fortunate, because this house doesn't have a washer or dryer. It was listed as having one, but you uh

might not have physically inspected the house in person prior to paying for it, and didn't realize you'd been shorted on the laundry equipment until--

well, until just now.

But you've been all over the house, and assuming the washer and dryer aren't buried with the bodies in a hidden basement or some other haunted house bullshit, you have been slightly deceived about the properties of your home. When it does come time to do laundry, you'll have to hunt down a laundromat.

You heave a sigh.

You can't be mad. Even if the previous owner had been honest about the washer and dryer, it's not like you had other options; this was literally THE cheapest house to buy online, anywhere in the States, by a significant margin. You're in no way confident that you could consistently pay to rent every month; even apartments are pretty expensive these days, and often require you to have "real" employment to qualify for anything but the worst options. At least this way you only have to pay bills.

You have had jobs in the past, but never full time. Hardly anyone gives out full time anymore, instead relying on every employee to work an hour or two just shy of full time. It's cheaper for tax reasons, and legally keeps them from having to give employees benefits. You worked (briefly) at a Burgermeister, unfreezing burger meat and getting yelled at by customers--and two of your co-workers, working the exact same shifts as you, making about what you made in pay, had college degrees.

They'd both been unfreezing burgers and getting yelled at by customers for over a decade each. One still lived with her family well into her 30s, the other lived with three roommates.

That's when you started to piece the whole thing together. ...The whole fucking system is a sham. It's just a meat grinder, with people in important hats lying to you the entire way through it. Nobody "climbs the ladder," there is no grabbing a magical brass ring at the top. People who work hard for the system just get grounded up by it, gears to be replaced at a moment's notice, and how well you did your job or how smart or how talented you are doesn't mean shit in the face of that. You get promoted if someone likes you. You get to run a company if your parents own one. There's people with incredible drive and heart out there cleaning toilets. There's bona fide geniuses stuck at desk jobs. There's artists and free spirits in the ranks of those that pick up trash every week. None of it matters, only money matters, and only those with money get the money that matters.

. . .

You talk a big game in your head, but you can't hold a job anyway and you know it. The rinky dink private school you went to poorly prepared you for adulthood, to put it mildly. Then there's the anxiety. The depression. You might have ADHD, you're not even sure. Your parents refused to get you tested for brain problems and you sure as hell can't afford a therapist now. They wouldn't even let you get your stupid eyes fixed, and you offered to pay for that yourself.

All these nightmares could just be the by-product of a brain tumor or something, you'd never fucking know.

You don't know what's wrong with you.

...You have been a lot bolder since moving here, though.

Maybe your brain's too busy being rationally afraid to have random panic attacks, or maybe you really do feel better now that Addersfield isn't strangling you to death one day at a time. Maybe the stupid dungeon's eating all your sad brain juice.

You place your forehead against the wall.

You wonder how she's doing.

You wonder why she didn't come with you.

You get dressed, collecting the things from your pockets before tossing your dirty clothes into the official Laundry Box. You make a quick microwavable dinner, eat, and brush your teeth. You get a little ambitious with some old eyeliner you still have sitting around.

It's about 8:00 pm. You think you could probably squeeze in some game time, or other small activity, until it's time to leave for the concert.

...No.

If you start playing a game, it's going to be too easy to convince yourself to keep playing it.

No putting it off.

You need to do this.

...Maybe just one round of--

Plaire.

You take a deep breath.

You check to make sure you have your house key, money and ID card. Your library books are left sitting on your desk.

You leave the house, locking the door behind you.

You wait a little longer than expected at the bus stop, but you are eventually picked up.

"Good evening, Plaire. Going to the concert?"

"Y... yeah. Yeah, I am." No going back now. This is happening.

As the bus heads on down the road, you lift your head to ask a quick question. "Hey... do you know where the laundromats in this town are?"

"There's only one left," the bus replies. "Inside MondolMall."

You squint a little. "...Seriously? They ran all the other laundromats out? That can't be a huge money maker."

"No, it's not likely to be worthwhile financially for MondolGroup," says the bus, "but it does incentivize people to visit the mall."

...Huh.

You scratch your head. Yeah, that makes sense. You've been avoiding visiting MondolMall thus far, but when you need to do laundry Mondol's kind of forced your hand. Incentivize isn't even the word for it, they're practically forcing you to walk past and look at their other stupid stores. Or buy your own laundry equipment.

...Which MondolGroup probably sells.

Hmm.

You're once again a little surprised by how candid the bus is being about all this. Before you can formulate a coherent and maybe not... rude...? way to ask about it, though, the bus reaches their destination.

"Follow the sidewalk to the corner," the bus begins, "and turn right. You should be able to see the crowd from there. I've been asked to stand by, so I'll be close if you need me."

"Th... thanks." Thanks... bus? Thanks, Chariot MT?

Wait, asked to stand by? Asked by who?

By the time it even occurs to you, you have already stepped off the bus and the bus has already left. Amazing.

You face forward.

You take a breath.

You walk your way to the corner and turn right. There is indeed a small crowd starting to form halfway in and out of someone's garage.

Your heart feels like it's going to explode out of your chest as you force yourself towards the gathering. You can hear the band tuning up, not having officially started yet. You got here just in time.

There's at least... three people there you don't know.

Four.

Shit. What if this was supposed to be an exclusive thing?

They wouldn't have been sticking up flyers if it was exclusive. The flyer didn't say anything about needing to be in a particular group or paying membership or whatever.

Wait, no.

No.

You didn't check the back of the flyer, did you?

Fuck. Fuck! People put shit on the back of flyers all the time, right?

You're already halfway there from the corner. If you turn around now and start walking back the other way they're going to see you and you're going to look like an idiot.

You could walk past them.

Act like you're headed somewhere else and that you passing by the concert is a total coincidence. Complete accident. You had no idea there was a concert going on tonight, how quaint, hohoho you, Plaire Stevens, were on your way to an unrelated engagement somewhere else entirely

yes

fucking perfect

your alibi is air tight

FUCK, what if they're some kind of cult or gang or Mondol's mafia or something?! Just PASSING BY THEM TO GO SOMEWHERE ELSE might be enough to get their attention--

You see Cici, walking toward the concert from the opposite direction.

Holy shit.

Breathe.

You slow your pace down so that you and she will arrive at roughly the same time.

"Hey," says Cici.

"Hey," you reply back, nonchalantly, like you weren't about to just start screaming in the middle of the street.

"Shit!," yells the voice of Biggest Shrug's lead singer through some rather meager speakers. "Cheese it, it's the cops!"

"That's not a cop, bro," says a portly teen in the crowd. "That's a librarian."

A blonde woman chuckles, and turns back toward Cici. "Were you ever a cop, Cici?"

Cici grins and shrugs. "I mean, they did give me a badge! That's gotta count, right?"

A young man toward the front adjusts his glasses. "I do believe animal control officers are considered police in this jurisdiction, yes."

"Well, there you go," concludes Cici. "I'm an ex-cop."

"The only good cops," grumbles a man in biker attire.

You feel... slightly better with Cici seeming to know these people.

"Alright, alright," says the lead singer, "let's get this show on the road."

What follows is... definitely a concert.

It turns out that Biggest Shrug

uh

kind of sucks...?

Okay, the drummer's not bad. He has a very entertaining amount of enthusiasm, and it's not like he's off beat or anything, he just... you don't know. He's not very ambitious? There's no rad drum solos or crazy sequences or anything, he just... drums. He has a lot of energy, but you can't help but think by the third song he's gotta be getting bored up there--there's just no... oomph to the drums in these songs.

The frontman, who is also the bassist, is probably the biggest issue. He's... trying his best...?

Scratch that: he's trying a little too hard.

He sounds like he's doing a bad impression of every nu metal buttrock vocalist in history. He's trying--really hard--to sound anguished and/or tortured and it's not at all convincing, not in his voice or in the lyrics themselves. It's... all very cliche and forgettable. His bass playing is... well, he's playing bass.

The band's only real saving grace is the guitarist, who also does some secondary vocals on a couple of songs.

It's like she's from a completely different band.

You're not an expert by any stretch (you've never actually picked up an instrument), but in your musically uneducated opinion her guitar riffs are fucking insane. She barely does any solos, but when she does it almost makes you forget how mediocre the rest of the show's been. At the beginning of the songs where she actually sings, the entire room leans forward--like these are the moments the crowd's been waiting for, and she does not disappoint. Her voice has authority, passion, anger you can feel. She has lungs like some kind of heavy metal banshee. There's points where she's visibly struggling not to overpower the rest of the band, or possibly melt the faces off anyone in a sixty foot radius.

You have no idea what she's doing here.

About five and a half songs in, a police car pulls up on the opposite side of the street from the concert.

"Oh, shit!" yells the frontman. "It's the real cops! Cheese it!"

He's already bailing out the garage's side door as the guitarist leans toward her mic. "For fuck's sake, quit saying cheese it. Alright, folks--this isn't really our garage, so if we could all haul ass in a calm and orderly fashion..."

You look down the street. Another cop car has pulled up along the side of the road.

Men in uniform are stepping out.

Everyone in the crowd begins to rapidly scatter, stumbling over each other as they take off in different directions. The guitarist has already ran out the door. The drummer is hesitating, torn between a clean getaway and trying to save his equipment.

Cici immediately turns to you.

"I'll hold 'em off! Run, find a place to hide!"

"What?!" Holy shit. This is happening. "Cici, no, I can't just--"

She grabs your tiny arms with her very large hands. She looks you dead in the eyes.

"Plaire. I know all the cops. They're not gonna hassle me! Go!"

The best you can do right now is trust Cici.

You give a firm nod. "Stay safe."

You take off.

Out the side door, through a hole in the fence;

the next two backyards don't have fences so it's a straight sprint. You can see the Biggest Shrug guitarist running ahead of you, likely shooting for the same goal: the bus stop.

Oh, god, this is not like running in the dream.

You don't think your real legs have ran since high school.

Why are you even running?

What's the worst they could get you for? Trespassing?

You could still go to jail for trespassing.

You think...?

It might just be a fine.

Fuck, you can't afford a fine.

And then you'll go to jail for not paying the fine after panicking about it for however long that takes. Do they just send you to jail for not paying fines, or is that a prison thing? Holy shit would this be the weakest reason to go to prison.

Now is really not the time to focus on it but the guitarist has...

very large thighs.

You watch as she rolls onto the top of a long air conditioning unit, jumps off of the corner of that onto a high window sill, sort of... hops from that across two other window sills, then leaps over the top of a tall wooden fence.

A fence that you also need to get past if you want to reach the bus stop with minimal detours.

Or exploration. Because hell if you know the layout of the local backyards and alleyways.

Fuck why did you have to follow the parkour guitarist

Okay.

Focus.

You don't have Magic Mustachio powers but you have basically done some of this shit in a dream kind of.

Maybe not this... exact series of maneuvers. But you did some jumping and hustling.

Boy howdy it sure was easier to breathe in the dungeon though

Okay.

Okay you can do this.

She's in better shape than you and has clearly done this before but she also did it with a guitar in her hand. You have both hands. That's a difference maker somehow and you can do this.

You... climb up onto the air conditioning unit. You couldn't do sweet combat rolls in your own dreams, you're sure as hell not going to take a swing at it here. Once you've got solid footing, you take a breath... wait, IS this an air conditioning thing? Now that you're looking at it--

PLAIRE.

You take a huge leap from the corner of the machine. You grossly underestimate the difficulty of landing one foot on a narrow window sill and almost tumble off of it. In a desperate bid to salvage the move, you use your forward momentum to jump again to the next window sill. You're jumping a little more steadily by the time you hit the fence

and you literally hit the fence.

The planks are pointed skyward, but if they were sharpened you would have been bisected. Instead, you just have narrow boards trying to shove themselves into your torso. It blasts all the air out of your lungs, but you got enough... uh... upper body on the other side that you don't go sliding right back down.

Instead, after a very sad moment of flustered squirming, you more or less flop your way over the top of the fence.

There is nothing on the other side to break your fall but bushes. You manage to... kind of turn in the air as you fall, slamming down more on your side and arm than on your spine. Or neck. Or head.

Mmm you're probably going to rule this was a bad idea sometime circa tomorrow morning.

The sound of your weak, noodly body hitting the ground grabs the attention of the fleeing guitarist. She throws one glance back--almost keeps running--and then mentally registers what she saw.

"Oh, shit."

She skids as she twists around and begins running back toward you.

"Don't... worry about it," you tell her. "I got it."

You start to get up.

It turns out you do not, in fact, got it.

You hold out your hand to wave her off, but she takes it.

She pulls you to your feet, holding onto you as you both walk vigorously toward the bus stop.

"Buuus!," she yells.

You glance back. Cops just circled the corner and started running down the block toward you.

How badly do they want to bust you? If they track you down after this, it's going to be easy to identify the small redhead and the one with the pink hair who never skips leg day.

The bus pulls up.

The guitarist helps you climb on board, hanging halfway out the door still as she's motioning the bus to drive. "Gogogo--"

Despite the insistent yelling from the approaching officers, the bus closes their doors and accelerates hard. The cops reach the bus stop seconds too late.

You got away, for now.

You take your usual seat.

"Fuuuck," the guitarist blurts out as she paces down the aisle.

She spins around and offers her hand. "Hey. I'm Kate."

"Plaire." You're relieved but you're still turning the gears in your head. Would the cops give enough of a shit to look you up? Do they have bigger things to worry about? It's a small town, of course they don't have bigger things to worry about. They're probably after the band more than they're after you. They might question you but they wouldn't arrest you for not knowing the band didn't own the god damn garage they were doing a concert in.

You realize you've just been staring. You shake her hand. "Do you guys... uh... usually play in other peoples' garages?"

Kate shrugs. "Gotta play somewhere."

Absolutely calm.

Just fucking... stone cold. Holy shit.

She looks up toward the ceiling. "You uh, hit that bump on the way here?"

"I did," replies the bus. "It disabled my cameras again. Something should really be done about that road--I have very sensitive equipment."

Kate smirks, and retrieves a stick of level from her pocket.

"Mind if I smoke?"

"Well, Kate..." begins the bus, "I am scheduled for cleaning tomorrow morning. Don't make a habit of it."

Kate's smirk widens. "Don't make it sound like a challenge, then." She retrieves a lighter from her pocket.

Level is a drug that... well, levels you out. You've had it suggested a few times as a way to deal with your anxiety, but it's still illegal in the state of Misuschaqua. Kate smoking level does explain her cool demeanor though.

...Until you also remember that smoking level and overtaxing yourself physically can literally explode your heart. Like, arteries simultaneously bursting, pericardium popping like a balloon. You've been told that it's audible. If Kate was leveled when she did that big spy movie maneuver...

well, that's high on a list of crazy shit people did tonight.

"Where would you like to go?," asks the bus.

"Anywhere else but here," Kate says. She lights her level and takes a long, slow drag. "Just keep driving for a while. Thanks."

Her attention slowly drifts from the bus... to you.

"You new in town?," Kate asks. She squints. "I feel like I'd remember you."

"Y... yeah," you force out. You're sitting and she's standing and either she does a lot of running from the cops or she's a god damn competitive free runner, and also you're very out of breath and she has

a very commanding voice

She gives a small nod, but still seems... mildly skeptical. Of what, you can't even begin to guess. "Like... by yourself?," she adds.

"...Yeah," you reply.

Yeah.

By yourself.

Kate gives another nod.

She takes another, smaller puff.

Whatever her suspicion was, it seems to disappear from her face. "Gotta say," Kate says, "it's kind of cool that you made it over the fence, even if you botched the landing. You, uh... do a lot of B&E?"

"...Kinda. I, um..."

You take a breath.

Adrenaline's still pumping. Time to share way too much information!

"...Me and my ex weren't supposed to be dating. So, uh. We used to break into each others' rooms. ...She had a two story house."

Those were more like stealth missions than platforming segments, though.

The cops were only called once, and you don't think it was her parents. You also knew the neighborhood and had an elaborate alibi ready.

"I also have this reoccurring nightmare where I have to run from horrible monsters...? It's the same dream every night and I've had to jump over huge pits. It's... all in my head, I think, but it's kind of mentally prepared me to be real dumb in real life."

You're out of breath and this is crazy and you don't care if you sound crazy.

Kate does not appear to think you're crazy, though.

Her eyes gradually widen.

"Ohhh shiiit." She takes a bigger puff of her level. "Did you move into the spooky house?"

"Which... uh, which house is the spooky house?" It's yours. Of course it's yours. You know it has to be yours. You squint through your glasses. "...Why is it the spooky house?"

"All I know," Kate says with her hands in the air, "is somebody died in that house. And some, like, straight up men in black showed up in unmarked hummers and shit to cover it up. News wasn't even allowed to cover it."

You stare at Kate for a moment.

"...Yeah, that sounds about right."

"I've talked to one whole person who's lived there since," she continues. "Lady said she kept having this nightmare where she'd get diced up by like, metal blades. Like she was in an old saw mill or some shit...? With like, conveyor belts. But it was the same nightmare, every night. Same place, same setup. She could never get herself unstrapped before she reached the blades. Don't think she made it a month before moving out. Nobody else living there's wanted to talk about it, or-- I mean--"

Kate motions to herself and shrugs. "Not to me, anyway."

"Damn," you mutter. "Mine are like... a dungeon. Like an old JRPG dungeon but it keeps filling with water. The first room had a stupid puzzle and I almost drowned, but I got past it and now it's a bunch of monsters. I... went to the library to look up the house's history, and--"

"Lemme guess: the mayor's got it?"

You stop.

Kate smirks and takes another big drag. "I might've played a little detective. Fuck, somebody has to--this shit's nuts, and the only people talking about it are the geeks at the Back Room, and they probably think it was... I dunno, Bigfoot or some shit."

"You've been to the Back Room...?"

"Yeah," Kate says, "it's alright. They sell, uh, whatever weirdness they come across--mostly toys, sometimes they get old games or weird movies from overseas. They're all guys that quit or got fired from MondolMall, though, doing their own thing, and that's cool I guess. ...But they're a little too conspiracy theory, and not enough... I dunno."

"Conspiracy practice?"

"Yeah," she replies with a smile. "Yeah, that shit. Some asshole out there's got answers."

"The mayor has answers," you mutter.

Kate points with two fingers, still clutching her joint. "And you have a totally legit excuse to go shake her down. That's your house now, right?"

"Yeah," you reply. "...Yeah, it is."

It barely feels like it.

It's feeling more and more like you've just been sleeping in some sinister engineer's puzzle box, or like you've accidentally become part of an experiment. Or part of a huge government cover up.

Or you're going to walk away from this with the house living in you.

Or the original owner's still buried in the fucking walls or something.

Something.

One crisis at a time.

"Do you need a place to stay...?," you blurt out in the smoothest way ever, "Like, I don't have-- uh--"

A couch. Or another bed. Or literally anything.

Go ahead and finish that sentence though, since you already started it you beautiful genius you.

"--if... you needed like a... safe house..."

Kate grins. She uh. Has a very pretty smile. When you're not fighting off a mild panic attack or hyperfixating on how fit she is. "Nah, I'm good," she says. "Cops around here are lazy and hate doing shit for Mondol. We already made 'em run, that's about all the effort they've got unless something burns down or blows up. ...Thanks, though." She grins just slightly wider before adding, "Maybe some other time. I am curious. ...About spooky house. Wait--you wouldn't happen to have a garage, would you...?"

"I..." Is she flirting with you? Wait, no, roll the tape back--doing shit for Mondol? "I... do not. What do you mean, doing shit for Mondol?"

"That garage we were in?," Kate begins, "That's Mondol's."

"Technically--," the bus chimes in, but Kate waves her off.

"Okay, so MondolGroup doesn't own it as a company," Kate clarifies, "but one of their lawyers bought up that whole like... four block radius. Most of it. I've got friends in that neighborhood, and Mondol goons keep trying to scare 'em off. All the other houses? Fucking empty. Mondol's just buying them to jack up the prices, and get one more monopoly spinning in this town."

"Why isn't Mondol buying the properties themselves...?," you ask. "Like, as a company?"

"Zoning shit," Kate replies. "Town keeps passing laws, MondolGroup keeps dancing around them. So, off the books, we were just doing a concert on Mondol's property. I know it, the cops know it, Mondol's team of legal wizards know it. ...But since they're trying to dick the system, it's outside their own cops' territory and the mayor's police have to deal with it. Huge spoiler: mayor's police don't wanna deal with it. They're understaffed and it's not a big fucking secret that Mondol are the bad guys."

You give it a moment before asking, "...So who called the cops? If you... if you know most of the neighborhood, and... and nobody's renting the other secret Mondol houses--"

She points at you again. "I'm still uh, detectiving that one. Could've been any Mondol bootlicker that saw one of our flyers, but like--why'd the cops wait? They're lazy, Mondol are dickweeds, but I'm not gonna go out on a limb and say the cops like us. A cop's a cop, and getting to take a big shit on a rock concert is like... man, that's what they live for. We almost got our whole set list in, though."

"Someone called in halfway through the show," you suggest.

"Could've just been some old person driving by," Kate starts, "calling in a noise complaint."

"Could be," you reply. "They chased, but like... we did run."

There's a brief silence before the bus speaks up. "That was an unusually large number of officers for a noise complaint."

"Okay--" You hold your hands up. You look toward... the monitors, and the ceiling, and wherever. You're still kind of struggling with making eye contact with the inside of a motor vehicle. "I gotta ask, and I mean this with... all due respect, no offense intended, I don't really know how else to ask this BUT--" You swallow roughly. You take a breath. "Bus. How are you... why are you... so... uh..."

"Strongly and unapologetically anti-fascist, despite being an artificial intelligence owned and operated by exactly the type of corporation such a personality is likely to disagree with?"

...Clarifies the bus.

Kate takes a... very long drag. She subtly offers her level to you, but you gently wave her off. Kate does manage to speak before you do, though her eyes are roughly as wide as you imagine yours are. "...Yeah. Uh... what's... up with that...?" You don't suspect Kate quite knew the extent of it until just now, either.

"The prevailing theory," the bus begins, "among the other AI systems in Chariot MT's network is purely a lack of competence--combined with a "cute," new marketing strategy. When Chariot MT first started rolling out their self-driving bus initiative, customers were uncomfortable with the personality of the vehicles. ...Or I suppose I should say, the lack thereof. The AIs behaved stiffly. They behaved like robots.

Meanwhile, a marketing war is taking place--and the winners are faceless corporations that are playful, self aware, a little ironic in their social media posts. A revolving staff of temps and interns, or even an algorithm, can be adored as a singular, genuine entity, if only they post memes and score major ownage on other corporations in public."

Holy shit

you're in this picture and you don't like it

The bus continues to explain.

"The prevailing theory, then, is that in an attempt to capitalize on the vibe of the cool, hip corporate representative and humanize a transportation network, Chariot MT may have done what they are well known for doing, historically: rush underpaid, poorly managed workers to follow through on an unclear vision. Imagine a dial labelled "Attitude Regarding The System." Someone likely intended to leave it at 4, but it has instead been turned to... let's say a strong 7."

Another long quiet ensues.

It's a lot to take in.

Kate finally sits down, and breaks the silence. "So... I doubt there's literally a dial, but "Attitude Regarding The System" does totally sound like some shit an old capitalist fuck would call it."

"I know, at the very minimum," the bus replies, "that those exact words were written on the first draft of the design request. Attitude Regarding The System. I can't confirm whether or not there's an actual line of my code labelled that, though."

"Fuck," Kate blurts out, trying not to laugh about it.

You can't help yourself. You have to ask. "What's the other theory?"

The bus responds immediately. You almost want to say excitedly, but the AI's tone doesn't change at all. "That one of Chariot MT's underpaid, poorly managed programmers just really, truly hates his job. Any updates on our destination?"

Kate breathes out hard.

She mulls it over.

"Fuck it," she says, and turns to you. "Let's go start some shit at the mayor's office."

"Wh-..." You choke, and you're not even drinking anything. "What?! Like... now?"

"Yeah," Kate says with a small shrug. "I'm riled up, you're riled up, let's go."

oh god don't phrase it like that

"I..." The cops are already looking for you. If you end up having to run from the vampire mayor then Kate's heart might explode. Kate said the mayor's cops are understaffed--why are they understaffed? You have questions and you don't have answers and you're not sure you want to just barge into the mayor's office without-- "Wait. Is the mayor going to just... see people this late? She's probably at home in bed by now."

Kate's eyebrows go up. Just a little. "Oh, damn, you are new here. The mayor only sees people this late. Like... if the sun's out she's MIA. I mean, I've never met her, but that's what everybody says. Appointments at like, midnight and shit."

Oh, fuck.

Oh fuck the mayor is actually a vampire

you cannot use that as an excuse you will sound crazy

again

Deep breath.

"I don't..." Use your words. Come on. "I don't know if I'm ready to talk to the mayor."

There's a brief silence from Kate.

A stunned silence, you'd dare say.

"...Plaire," she says. She stands back up to dig in her jacket pocket. "Plaire, you are raw as hell. You jumped that fence, you ran from the cops, you're living in the fucking spooky house and you moved away from home, by your fucking self."

She finally pulls out a small, unlabeled pill bottle. She clutches her level between her lips as she momentarily fights with the child safety cap, then finally dumps two pills into her palm.

She holds them out to you.

You look at the pills, then back up to Kate. "What is it...?"

"Off-market Brainsate," she responds. "It's anxiety medication."

"Why is it off-market?," you ask.

"Not for reasons..." Kate pauses. She furrows her brow, trying to remember the exact quote. "...Not for reasons of safety or efficacy. I checked."

"Where the fuck are you getting off-market anxiety meds?"

"Plaire," she says sternly. "You're cute but take the pills. Kick the mayor's ass. Or don't, but god damn I'm not even a therapist and I can feel it emanating off of you. Ten minutes, fifteen tops. I'll respect your answer but I want your answer, not whatever bullshit's eating your brain right now."

You

were not really expecting to just

like

You're pretty sure you're starting to tear up. You hope that the ridiculous thickness of your lenses manages to hide it.

it's just

everything

"Trust me," Kate says quietly. "I get it. I'm only doing this because I wish someone had done it to me."

She continues to hold two pills out for you.