Chapter Fifty-Four – Burned/Scarred/Butch, Scary, and Notorious

Chapter Fifty-Four – Burned/Scarred/Butch, Scary, and Notorious

“As with most careers, the modern journalist has their own codified look. Journo fashion is usually marked by plate carriers and bulletproof vests, often in bright, faction-neutral colours. Occasionally a journo will be wearing a flak helmet as well, oftentimes with several electronic upgrades attached to it to allow them to capture the world around them in high fidelity.

The modern microphone, with sound dampening, vocal-tuned pick ups, and at-range-listening is another must-have for any fashionable journalist.”

–Fashion Careers, 2049

***

“You good?” I muttered once I was right next to Gros Baton.

The kid nodded once, his face set and serious, brows drawn into a scowl. “J’pense que ça va. Mais ces journalistes-là n’arrêtent pas de me harceler.” I think I’m alright. These journalists won’t stop hounding me, though. He gestured to the journalists who were kind of crowding us in.

I was pretty sure I could beat a path to my bike with no problem. I only saw a few guns in the lot. Plenty more body-armour though. Plate-carriers were the order of the day, and a few of them had army-style helmets repainted with the logo of their stations on the sides. Not all, mind, a lot of them were trying to look friendly and personable, all corpo-smiles and artificially friendly faces.

There were two ways out of here, I figured. That mostly came from the limited experience I had seeing celebrities and samurai dealing with the media, so it was all third or fourth hand experience. Still, I’d seen some meme-able fuckups and knew what not to do.

Don’t insult the journos… unless I was really hot, funny, or popular. Don’t repeat ‘no comment’ endlessly, it only pisses them off… unless I was hot about it, or funny, or popular. Don’t get too defensive, don’t ramble, and don’t assume the mic is off. Unless I could be hot or funny with it.

Fuck, being hot, funny, and popular was one hell of a leg up, but I wasn’t any of those three so I’d have to be sensible.

So, two solutions. Drag Gros Baton out of here as quick as I could, fast enough not to piss this lot off, or… the other solution. “Alright, you fucks,” I said before waving them down. Somehow that actually shut some of them up. “You get one question per network.”

They all started at once.

“Oi! Shut the fuck up!” I snapped. Wait, was that insulting? Fuck me I wasn’t good at following my own advice, was I? “One per network. I’ll know if you’re being a dick about it. Don’t test me. You! Yeah, you, the gormless guy with the baldspot. Yeah, I can see it, question, now.”

Screw it, I was gonna handle this bunch like I would unruly kids and I’d hope for the best.

“Uh, Kai Voss, for Apoca-Lips,” he said before pointing a small microphone my way. “Uh, can you let us know about your relationship with the samurai next to you?”

“Gros Baton?” I asked. “He’s nice enough.” I shrugged with a shoulder. “Next. You, with the blue and yellow hair.” Dude had a logo with the same colours on his chest.

“Ridge Byte with the Flossing Network, can you tell us about your dental routine?”

I blinked. “I don’t brush and I sure as shit don’t floss. Teeth are luxury bones and I’m rich as fuck. You, the hot one with the rainbows. Also, you single?”

The girl blushed prettily. “Ah, hello, Violet Shade, from PRSM, the LBGT-QWERTY Tech network… I’m not single?”

“Yeah, I’m not either,” I admitted.

“Thank you?” she tried. “S-speaking of relationships, miss, what’s your current status and if I may, what’s your stance on two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual plus issues?”

“I’m very not single and happy about it, and I don’t care who or what people fuck as long as it’s not with me,” I said. I pointed to the next guy.

“Avery Covert, Top Secret News,” he said. “What are the samurai around here doing? Initially, there was a push to protect this area, but for the last two days, sightings have decreased substantially, and there’s clear signs of some sort of cover-up.”