Chapter Sixty-One – Lights! Camera! Bullshit!

Chapter Sixty-One – Lights! Camera! Bullshit!

“You should absolutely, under no circumstance, allow someone untrained in Public Relations do any of the talking when any number of cameras are involved.”

–Politics 101 Textbook, ninety second edition, 2029

***

I couldn’t decide if I was annoyed with the job or not. Why did I land with the ‘be the face’ job? I was crass, rude, uneducated, and lazy. I didn’t want to be the one reaching out to others to get them to kick their ass into gear. But no, it had to fall on me.

I could have been home right then, wearing nothing but a loose t-shirt, watching shitty reality-TV on a screen with more square feet than some apartments and with Lucy cozying up to me, but nope, the Earth needed saving and it fell on me to get the saviours to get their shit together.

Bullshit.

“You, uh, okay?” Gros Baton asked as he heard me muttering.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said with a dismissive wave. “I don’t know how to do social media shit. I mean, I’ve been scrolling since I’ve been old enough to swipe my thumb down, but I don’t know if that qualifies me for making posts, you know?”

You could listen to music your whole life, but that didn’t mean you knew jack shit about playing it. Gros Baton didn’t seem to appreciate that distinction much as he just shrugged. “Fais juste de ton mieux. J’pense pas que tu peux vraiment tout fucker ça.” He grinned. “Dans le pire des cas, tire sur un autre maire ou quelque chose du genre. Ça va te remettre à TV.” Just do your best. I doubt you can fuck this up too much. Worse case scenario, shoot another mayor or something. That’ll get you on TV again.

“Oh, fuck off,” I mumbled. He was probably right, though. “Okay… right. What would work on me?”

Would I pay attention to a news broadcast by a samurai? Probably, a little bit, if only because it was fun to see the material that would become memes later when it was still fresh. Shit, my brain really was rotted.

Right, what would work beyond that? Just sitting at a table and talking into the camera would come off as honest, but also boring as balls. I needed to keep people’s attention.

I sent out two texts, both with the same content—one to Gomorrah, the other to Lucy.

Would you be willing to wear a bikini on camera to save the world?

I got two “No’s” within seconds of each other. They didn’t even ask for me to elaborate. So that plan was shot. Well, whatever. Hot chicks only worked on… honestly, a majority of the population, but if that failed, I’d need something more impressive.

I looked around. We… were standing behind a kilometre long gun that shot into space. That was kinda badass. I nodded, then sent out another pair of texts. This time one was to the group chat, the other directly to Tankette.

Hey, I need intimidating people to stand in the background of a video while looking cool. Volunteers?

The message to Tankette was simpler.

Can I borrow your tank for like, an hour?

This time the replies were a little more positive. Princess and Knight were down for it. Hedgehog said he would show up, and Gros Baton was already right here. Tankette didn’t mind letting me use her tank at all. And Crackshot said that he could be over with Emoscythe within the next half hour. Gomorrah was busy, but once she caught on to what I was planning, she let me use her Fury which… well, it might get a certain demographic of car nuts to pay attention, at least.

The next problem was making things seem natural. Sure, having half a dozen samurai was badass, but… we could just be standing there like a bunch of jumped-up dorks. That’d immediately look unnatural and stupid, and if there was one thing that a modern audience would pick up on, it was inauthenticity.

Thankfully, while I busied myself moving my cat mech next to the Big Gun and placing it next to the Fury and Tankette’s mini-tank, two familiar faces popped up, and I instantly had an answer to my problem.

That answer being ‘make it someone else’s problem’.

“Emoscythe!” I cheered as she and Crackshot walked across the compound. Emoscythe looked around the place, curious, but not seeming too impressed. She had been a samurai for a while, so this setup was probably nothing too spectacular for her.

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“It’s Emoscyhe Mordeath Noir,” she reminded me, not unkindly. “And hell, Stray Cat. I see you’ve taken to wearing the outfit I helped you with.”

“Ah, yeah,” I said. I was rocking that bounty-hunter samurai look. She, on the other hand, was in full-on gothic lolita, with a poofy yet rather short skirt with a wide fringe…thing. She looked one part French maid, one part sickly Victorian child, and with all of the chains and little skulls built into her dress, not to mention the sword by her hip, one part ‘capable of fucking you up.’ “Hey, you’re the resident PR expert, right?”