Chapter Fifty-Eight – End Program To You Too

Chapter Fifty-Eight – End Program To You Too

“One of the events precipitating the fall of several western nations was the rise of censorship. At some point, several governmental entities believed that more robust laws and regulations around the censoring of information were in order, to keep people in line.

As it turns out, one cannot censor someone from shooting them in their own home.”

–On the Rise of the Black Curtain, 2035

***

The next couple of days were surprisingly quiet. I went to school, cuddled with Lucy, ate lots of good food, chatted with Nya and Gomorrah and stood next to Shy while she refilled her social batteries.

It was nice, but there was still the looming threat of something awful on the horizon.

Not the conference. That was taking care of itself.

And by that I meant that there were enough people invested in it now that while things weren’t exactly smooth sailing, there were various groups that wanted this to work out, and more who just wanted some fingers in the pie.

Gomorrah was having fun with it, I could tell. She was the sort of woman that liked organizing this kind of thing. Lucy was in on it as well. She had her small army of volunteers laying out the groundwork. They were visiting the casino on the regular.

From what I could tell, the casino was not happy with the whole ordeal, but it was also making them very popular. I wasn’t sure if that was good for their pocketbooks, but it sure was good for the place’s rep. Half of Lucy’s crew’s work was setting up a watch and barricades to keep people out, and we were a week and a half away from the big event.

Gomorrah was already weeding through applications, refusing medias, paparazzi and b-list celebs who just wanted to be there.

We were going to have to set up some massive anti-surveillance net over the whole thing.

Well, Shy was going to. I was providing my illustrious self to the event, which I thought was more than enough.

Or it would have been, right up until Gomorrah dumped a mountain of responsibility on me the moment she saw I was just relaxing and not worrying.

Not that I was just chilling and not worrying. In fact, I had something to do today that was unchill and very worrisome.

I had to go check up on Princess and Knight.

I really didn’t wanna do it. The girl gave me the creeps sometimes. But… yeah, I could be the bigger woman, pop over and see if she was handling the samurai life alright. The others had all turned out to be doing okay. Gros Baton and Hedgehog hadn’t killed themselves clearing out that old megabuilding, Tankette was being quiet and homely, Shy was… slightly less shy. My cohort of newbies was fine, except I’d never looked into how Princess was doing.

So I got ready to head out and find out.

Only I wasn’t so stupid as to not bring backup, which is how I ended up at Shy’s door, tapping a ‘shave and a haircut’ beat and waiting.

And waiting some more…

I was starting to wonder if she wasn’t home at all when the door slid open and I found myself looking at a frazzled Shy. She looked a bit wide-eyed, and her pajamas were all tussled up. “Uh, hey,” I said.

Shy stared at me, then around and past me. “End program,” she muttered.

Was she running something in the background? Well, whatever. “End program to you too,” I said. “Sorry to barge over, but you didn’t answer my texts, and it’s not like you live that far away. Figured I could pop over and see if everything’s alright.”

“Oh.” Shy blinked a few times. Then she rubbed at her face. “It is… noon.”

“Uh-huh,” I confirmed.

“Sorry,” she said.

Then she slid the door closed in front of me.

I was about to feel a little insulted when her AI spoke up. “Please forgive Lady Shy, she’s had a long and arduous night. She requires a few minutes to shower and prepare herself. If you’re willing to wait, she may be willing to assist you.”

“Yeah, I can chill for a few,” I said.

I sniffed at the air. Was it me or… meh, nah, it was probably just the fact this was a basement. Those tended to smell a bit musky.