Chapter Twenty-Four – Rude, Crass, Common

Chapter Twenty-Four – Rude, Crass, Common

“You either fashion, or you fashoff, right boss?”

–Emoscythe Mordeath Noir’s former personal assistant, first (and last) day on the job, 2053

***

“So, what do you think of Cat’s image problem?” Lucy asked.

Emoscythe, or Audrey or whatever, frowned and looked me up and down. We weren’t the only people on the shopping floor. Far from it, even, so the crowds walking around had to part to make space for our slow asses.

“It’s clear that so far her AI has been making most of the stylistic choices for her, and the rest has been more or less instinctive.”

“Hey now,” I said. The way she said it felt like how someone might say ‘her mom picked it out for her’ and that hurt a little. Even if it was mostly or entirely true. “I’m not that bad,” I said.

“No, you’re really not,” Audrey said. “You could be substantially worse than you are. I’ve worked with plenty of samurai who have no idea how to manage their own image, and while you don’t seem to be invested in the process, your looks fit with that kind of casual dismissal. You genuinely have a good instinct for this, Catherine.”

“Yeah, you’re hot,” Lucy agreed.

I pushed back the flush that was trying to overtake me. Compliments weren’t my forte. “Alright, so we’re good, then?”

“Oh no. An instinctual understanding isn’t a firm one. You still have a long way to go before I’d say that you’re an expert with image.”

I sighed. “Fine. Just, point out some clothes from here and I’ll wear that.”

Audrey blinked. “Oh. No, I think we’ve run into a fundamental misunderstanding. I don’t care what you wear.”

“You don’t?” I asked.

She relented. “I supposed I care a little. How you dress is obviously an important part of your image, but it would be foolish to assume that it starts and ends there. And I don’t just mean posture and physical appearance. Image is more than just that. It’s about how the world at large perceives you.” She glanced past my shoulder, and I had the impression she was looking at something I couldn’t see. “Follow me,” she said.

Audrey didn’t wait before stepping by and walking off, which meant that Lucy and I had to move quick to catch up. “She’s weird, right?” I asked.

“She’s a little intense,” Lucy said. “Bit too… top for me? Still, kinda hot though.”

“I mean, yeah, but I was talking more, you know, personality wise?” Emoscythe was pretty attractive, but that was part and parcel of being young, fit, and having the ability to murder things with ease.

“Oh yeah, totally unhinged, but in a super-focused way. She reminds me a bit of Grasshopper, but less intense?”

“You two know that I can hear you?” Audrey asked.

“We do!” Lucy chirped. “We didn’t say anything too bad, did we?”

“No, I suppose not. Being compared to Grasshopper is actually quite nice. She’s a good woman.” Audrey brought up to the edge of the market and to a space where the stalls weren’t quite as corporatized. They were more often simple, plastic tables with a few banners, some basic dividers, and racks full of clothes for sale. Deeper in, closer to the outer edge, were some stalls where the merchants were making clothes live, some of them with a small audience. “This is what I wanted you to see.”

I refocused on the stall Audrey had stopped before. It was a semi-circle of tables with a few walls that had bars sticking out of them from which t-shirts hung. That was all they sold here, shirts and more shirts. There was a machine in the stall that was printing something on a shirt while the stall keeper and someone that was presumably a client waited.

“What am I looking for… oh,” I said. There was a row of shirts that were me-themed. Or Stray Cat themed? I hadn’t noticed, but nearly all of the shirts here were samurai merch.

There were a few that I didn’t recognize, and plenty more that I did. Pouty-faced Deus-Ex’s, some chibi art of Grasshopper next to some very bright shirts with Neon Girl Happy-chan. Some locals that had passed away a while ago too, or that had probably left Earth. Emeraude was there, and I knew they were a New Montreal local once. It was strange thinking that I’d actually met some of the people on those shirts.

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The row with my own image was the weirdest of all.