New System, Who Dis?

Wednesday, April 17th, 2069

“Ms. Stovall has caught us up on your situation. The very first thing that we need to do is paint you as the victim in this,” Kristen said, pulling up a slide on the projector. The slide showed a few viral SwiftGram personalities who had made their names by sharing stories that painted them as victims in one way or another. “These people here are examples of successes for this strategy.”

“I’m familiar with all of them,” I answered but then followed up a bit more seriously. “Yet, none of them are on trial for murder.”

“Self-defense!” Geneva corrected gently. “While that’s true,” she continued. “What we are looking at is proof that the formula works. The trick if you will. Why did Jesse Barnes, for example, get to keep his house, even though the bank foreclosed?”

“Well, he not only created enough public outcry toward the bank that they had to listen, but he also got enough in donations using Fund Me Now,” I answered.

Kristen nodded, but chuckled a little bit, letting me know that I had missed something. She didn’t leave me guessing for long. “No, Brodie. What he did that led to all that, was share his story. He let people into his problems without oversharing or crying for help. He was a victim without the victim mentality.”

She clicked the next slide and some of what she just said appeared on screen. “The formula here is telling the truth. Making sure you’re aware of each public ‘fact’ and giving your audience an explanation. It’s not about trying to ask for help, but just letting interested, concerned people into your life.”

Geneva picked up the thread and continued, “The key is being aware of the public’s lean on an issue and giving them your version. Remember, you’re the victim, but we want to avoid the more negative connotations that come with that sort of label. You have a story of the events that the people can’t get anywhere else. Only you can tell them exactly what happened that night, and only you can share with them what you went through, before, during, and after.”

“That’s the problem, though,” I said. “It would just be my retelling of a story that is being twisted by the opposing counsel.”

“Not twisted well enough!” Kristen said while holding up a finger. “We spent the entire night going over the case, and it has several glaring facts that work in your favor. First, Morgan Hallsbrad currently is on trial in the United States for forty-six murders that span across the eastern seaboard of the country. Second, Mr. Varnish and his firm ‘Black and White’ are only taking on your case.”

“How is that a fact that works in my favor?” I asked, not putting together the puzzle pieces.

“If used correctly,” Geneva said as the slide flipped again. “We can paint this as a case of David vs Goliath. Of a hero who saved future victims and is now being prosecuted and persecuted unfairly. Then, we hopefully evoke the question of ‘why is a high-powered firm from California representing Morgan Hallsbrad outside of their own country in Canada’, but has nothing to do with the much larger ongoing case in the United States?”

“With enough fans looking into it, we might even be able to force a response,” Kristen added to Geneva. The two seemed to work better together than Volt and Flair.

My face twisted into a frown. “Surely, me telling my story out of the blue isn’t going to go over well.”

“Definitely not, we’ve got a lot of work to do before then. This is the end game,” Kristen stated. “First, we believe that the people will want to know what Skill you received. They’ll want to know what you do. They’ll want in on your day-to-day life and to feel as though, in some small way—that they’re a part of it.”

“Okay?” I said, again pretty sure that showing myself Mining in Portals wasn’t going to ‘capture’ people the way they described.

“I know what you’re thinking.” Geneva smiled and flipped the slide again. This one was titled ‘Your Groomed Image.’

Smegma suddenly bolted forward. “She does? Is it a Skill? You think it's higher rank than mine? Does she know about me?” He started wildly waving his hands in front of her face. “This is a strong illusion if she’s from Crendalar Five…” He swung back to face me, his eyes wild. “BATTLE STATIONS!!! Get ready to launch Proton Torpedoes on my mark!”

[Dude. Calm down. It’s just a saying on my world.] I struggled not to roll my eyes as both Geneva and Kristen were still looking directly at me. [It basically means ‘I can tell by the look on your face what you must be thinking right now’, and she was right.]

“Aw.” Smegma’s ears somehow wilted. “That’s lame. I was kinda hoping for… I don’t know—something more exciting than all this Sparkle nonsense.”

Biting my tongue, I worked my face into an expression of earnest interest as I looked toward the two women.

“People already know you’re a Miner that just Awakened after a dangerous, and most importantly—lifesaving fight in a Portal. The buzz already exists, now you just need to use it. The question is what Skill you Awakened and how we're going to market it to fit your blue-collar persona.”

“Blue-collar persona?” I asked not getting the reference.

“Sorry,” Kristen said and held up a phone. “I forgot that you haven’t been online to see all the comments. Right now you’re being hailed as an ‘everyman’ hero. What we would call a ‘one-of-us’ reaction.” She paused for a second and rummaged on her computer with the mouse pad before changing the slide to one that fit that discussion. “On that note, we think your photos and dream of becoming a Mana Bank fit but only as a sort of launchpad and need some trimming. I think we want more of an underdog to greatness arc for you.”

“For example,” Geneva said, edging in before I could say anything. “This picture here and that one there show you in ‘tropical’ locales. We think you should delete them. That’s not relatable to the general public, and while we know that those are green-screened, the common man doesn’t.”

I blinked and immediately identified at least twenty other pictures with the same problem. Surely, people wouldn’t actually think I went to these places just for a photo, right? I tried putting myself in someone else’s shoes and realized the problem immediately. It didn’t matter. People wouldn’t click on the photos and see my descriptions or tags. They may just scroll through the thumbnails, just like I did on the first inspection of a person.

“And the one with a helicopter view will make it seem like I’m living a glamorous life,” I concluded and saw both women’s smiles grow.

“But we spent a good deal of money to get those photos taken and edited,” my dad said, entering the conversation for the first time.

“Don’t worry Mr. Flacarada, we aren’t suggesting never using them again. Here at Sparkle Legion, we work in phases. In phase one we need to set Brodie’s foundation. He needs to be an everyman who has been victimized and is continuing to be targeted. In phase two or three we’ll give the fans what we call a ‘payoff’. Show them what they’ve accomplished for him.

“That’s when we plan to put those back up, but without the description saying it was a photo shoot. This will be your rags-to-riches story. We’ll use them to create super-fans that will stay by your son’s side for life.”

“They’re thinking in terms of ‘fans for life’, and you’re worried about getting locked up. The dichotomy is amusing,” Smegma said while chuckling.

I held up a hand to get the women’s attention back on me. “I think the focus should be on the trial. We’ll deal with the other stuff if I don’t end up in prison.”

“Absolutely. We’re fully onboard with that. That’s why we’re saying phase two or three. We’re prepared for every possibility—” Kristen paused and looked flustered for a moment. “This plan helps you before, during, and after the trial…”

“Even if I go to jail?” I said, trying to save her from having to say it. She nodded sheepishly and flushed red.

“Exactly. Even if that happens we’ll make sure the public is up in arms…”

The rest of the meeting was spent getting to know me better and then brainstorming for video ideas. In the end, the ladies said they wanted to take away what we’d done today and think about it, but they did hand me a ‘Cannonball 360’, one of the best Instagram cameras for athletes and Hunters.

As Geneva handed it to me she said, “Wear that around with you as you mine, and get some shots of coming home, eating dinner–that kind of thing. We’ll clip out anything too personal, unflattering, or anything that would inadvertently dox you. No matter what we start with, you’ll need some footage to clip together between expositions. Try to show the mining Picks with the repair marks. Maybe even a before and after if you can manage it?”

I’d used the public lie with them for now, not wanting the whole world to react as my mother had. Then again, Willa hadn’t made it for dinner to meet the Demon last night—so, that could be an interesting conversation.

“It can only hold about forty-eight hours of video on the internal memory, so upload the videos to this virtual drop-box once every two days.” She held out a small card. “We’ll handle the editing after that. Well, once we create a script. Also, as soon as you try out your newest Skill and know what it does, call us. Okay?”

“New Skill?” I asked, confused.

Her brows furrowed at the question. “The one you got in the video that just went viral? You lit up like the Fourth of July. Everyone’s wondering what you got.”

Momentarily shocked, I nodded and accepted the business card that held a scannable QR, which would likely take me to a digital dropbox. I had totally forgotten that, to the world I’d had an Awakening, and not an Upgrade to an existing Skill.

“Oh! Everything’s been so crazy that I’d nearly forgotten about that.” They looked at me like I’d grown a second head. Right. Who’s going to forget about gaining a Skill? “I was sort of… bleeding all over the place and just glad to be alive…”

Their looks of confusion transitioned to ones of concern and understanding. “Right,” Kristen cleared her throat, seeming embarrassed. “It’s easy to forget that the stuff in the video is real and not some movie about an action hero or something. Sorry. Are you… okay?”

“Everyone made it home alive and safe, so I’m better than okay. I’ll make sure to let you guys know what I find out about the new Skill though,” I said into the awkward silence.

The silence grew and I was looking for a way to exit the conversation and office when my dad coughed.

“We’ll let you ladies get back to work,” he said and stood from the mesh-backed office chair. “Come on, Brodie.”

Thanking the women, I got to my feet and they took the hint. Geneva and Kristen walked me and my father to the elevators before Geneva finally blurted, “We’ll send you an email with the Dropbox link as well so don’t worry about losing the card. In that email we’ll attach the contract. We’ll need it signed before we start work.”

My hand slapped my forehead involuntarily. Of course, a contract and agreement to work together. No wonder it had gotten so awkward there for a moment. Chuckling, I said, “No, you don’t have to do that. I’ll sign it right now.”

Both women breathed a sigh of relief.

* * *

Greb-shak, or rather, the construct who retained Greb-shak’s memories, watched the proceedings of the night and day. While he joined the conversation at times, mostly when prompted to do so, he was distracted. There were multiple reasons for that distraction.

First amongst those reasons was that he wasn’t alive. Not really. With his new memories gained from Upgrading Demonic Vault, came the realization that he had sacrificed his body, Skills, and power to create the very Skill that linked him to Brodie. He could vividly recall his team of researchers and him making that decision together. Memories flashed through his mind of them selflessly sacrificing nearly their entire team of thirty Abyss Sect’s most brilliant minds. He could also now recall the mathematical error that he’d only noticed after the Ritual that they had worked and sacrificed for had begun. The System destroyed and banned out-of-date or obsolete Skills with each new integration, trying to ‘better itself for the inhabitants’ of the given tested world.

Greb-shak sneered at that thought, knowing he disliked the System but not having all the memories to fully understand why. He did have one complaint he could still recall, though.

The System depicted itself as benevolent. As always updating itself for peak efficiency—to give the new world a ‘better’ chance at Evolution. The one memory Greb-shak could recall, was his feeling toward that sentiment. The System wasn’t kind or benevolent and new worlds weren’t given the ‘optimal’ chance to Ascend.

No, new worlds were husking petri dishes.

He shook off that emotion, which stemmed from watching his people slowly erode. They had slowly transitioned from a society mostly adapted to the System, to one scorned by it. He shook his head and body vigorously to truly clear the rising disgust.

Back to his memory of the Demonic Vault’s Skill creation.

Unfortunately, that was all he knew—they had started creating the Skill. Something went wrong, and bam everything after that was blank. But he was here, and the Skill was functioning—albeit with some… issues.

So, surely it couldn’t have gone entirely wrong, but without the ability to remember anything more… He was left pondering. Clenching his fist, he deliberately let his talons puncture into the meat of his palm. It didn’t bring him pain like it once would have, but the familiar action still helped calm him down.

The second distraction stemmed from a decision he had to make. A decision he had already made once but hadn’t had the knowledge he currently possessed while doing it. He’d chosen sub-Skill options for Brodie, picking what would be best for him—not necessarily what was best for the Abyss Sect’s champion. Admittedly Overdraft wasn’t the worst choice he could have made, but he could remember his tiny ‘imp’ brain thinking that picking it would increase the skill Demonic Vault faster…

Now, after the most recent Update and pulsing with new energy in his soul, he knew that there were so many better options. Also, offering Brodie Extraction, a Skill designed to take Skills from enemies—well that wasn’t optimal for the Abyss Sect or the kid. He wasn’t out there hunting for beasts or his fellow humans to take their Skills, and the Sect didn’t need new Skills—they needed Mana.

Admittedly, in that regard, Brodie’s choice to mine Crystals was actually working in the sect’s best interest. So, could Greb-shak use that and cater the next sub-Skill choices in the right direction?

That was only his second distraction, and not the one that consumed most of his thoughts. The third overwhelming problem stemmed from the first but was also entirely separate. What was the situation of the Abyss Sect? Of Crendalar Five? Of Demons in general? He had to admit that his earlier ‘posturing’ inside of the meeting with that Stovall woman, was just that. Sure, he did believe that other races were on this planet, but normally he wouldn’t divulge that.

Except for this one all-consuming worry. Where were the Demons? They should be pretty husking obvious if they were on ‘Earth.’ While his appearance was a bit unique—not many Felguards would ever consider bedding an Imp, and other Demon’s appearances would certainly stand out amongst frail humans. The closest he could think of on his planet would have been the Orcs, or maybe the Hobgoblins. But even they would scream ‘alien species’ or ‘monster’ to the inhabitants here.

So, thus his biggest worry of what happened to his Abyss Sect was compounded with the question of what happened to his entire people…

Brodie was downstairs discussing the day with his parents. He was clarifying some things that they didn’t understand and conveying information from follow up emails Geneva and Kristen sent. So, Greb-shak was alone in the bedroom—well, in the shower specifically.

He liked the device. It was somewhat of a novel idea and looked relaxing to him. Crendalar was a planet filled with sand and possessed limited water. So, their ‘showers’ consisted of body scrubs with sand. Sure he couldn’t interact with this ‘shower’ but he could imagine, and that relaxed him and let him think.

While he didn’t approve of the practice of ‘therapy’ in general, he did admit that there were some things that had intrigued him during Brodie’s discussion with the Evelyn ‘Maybe Elven’ Treesong. One of the more interesting ideas was of organizing your thoughts into a journal or some systemized format. With how scattered his mind had been of late, he felt like getting the various ideas, fears, concerns, and vague, patchy memories into some kind of order would be beneficial. The main problem with that idea was that he was incapable of writing or otherwise seriously interacting with the world, but one thing he did have access to, was the System-like notification windows of his Shop. He could massage some of the features that had been intended for custom ordering to create a functional notepad where he could organize his headspace.

He’d found that speaking his thoughts aloud, even to himself, seemed to help clarify them. Since the Shop was intentionally designed to be able to be operated through mental intent, he was able to dictate his notes directly. After several nights binge-watching StarTrip—Ultra Deep Space Forty-Two, he’d found that the idea of the ship Captain’s Log really appealed to him. He could interact with replicas of any item in his Shop—a feature that allowed him to showcase his wares to potential buyers. Among the items there, he’d found a small, crescent-shaped Spent Mana Crystal that resembled one of the communication devices among the members of the Starship Energize and used the replica of it as a focus for his attention. Unfortunately, he’d been mortifyingly caught in the act the previous night. After the initial shock had passed, he’d taken up the policy of ‘it’s only awkward if you make it awkward’, and refused to be shamed. The shower was relaxing and the makeshift journal was, ughh… therapeutic, but he now had exactly what he needed: time, space, and a place to think.

He shook his head and muttered, “Yeah cause I’m not chasing my own wings right now.”

Sighing heavily, he decided to try taking a meditative breath, something that was wholly unnecessary in a body that didn’t truly exist, but maybe, like the talons into his palm, the action would help calm him. It didn’t really work, but it did reset his internal loop of distractions to the beginning.

“Well, there’s only one problem that can be handled right now,” he said to himself. “Two decisions to make that should help Brodie stay alive and grow. Maybe if he stays alive long enough, I’ll find answers. Then again, if I make the wrong decisions, he could turn out like that Morgan guy and wind up getting himself husking killed.”

If ‘Smegma’ had hair, he would have started pulling it out of his scalp like he’d seen that Jagger Vance do on a few occasions. Instead, he reached up and tugged on his horns worriedly…