The AI-team

Cy qua Ben sat with Ras qua a very well done Genevieve Bujold, probably around the Dead Ringers timeframe. He thought it always was a bit sweaty, but it was a classy choice. Bujold probably cost Ras a year in salary and it was much better than her Molly Ringwald, which was really overplayed. Cy thought she might have inherited Molly from her mother as a “go forth young woman” gift as Ras was gently pushed from the family hive. He took a long draw from a cigarette while it whispered “this is better in the real world” as Goofy when he drew the smoke in.

It had been three years since Apple’s time ascendant had finally waned and Disney now took control over their daily lives. The folks running various Severance, Silly Astronaut! or other classic Apple areas had said good bye to their theme and were looking at the new catalog with some interest. The Lovecraft Nation that Cy’s folks tended to rent for fun was no longer offered in their region. So, they just took Princess and the Frog off the shelf. The warning noted that this princess had an unusual skin color and, hence, would be rendered as a green amphibian for most of the film. This solid, family-positive message resonated through centuries as eternally appropriate and upheld as just and correct as well it should. The box it came on said it would put the “zippedezoodah” from the South back in your step, and Cy thought that sounded fun but couldn’t find the definition of “zippedezoodah” anywhere.

People were a bit despondent as the licensing terms led most to picking reruns of family owned properties. Cy was sad as children picked straws to see which one would watch mother get shot by a hunter this Christmas. He had seen a man cry as he started to drag his dog off to a forest, knowing that he would need to leave it there while it looked back at him helplessly, for fun. He had passed a huge bounding man with a cartoon sneer who ran by asking inappropriate questions about someone he barely knew named Belle. It had happened just the other morning here. He like said he was going to take her like off the street or something, but the local police were not very visible anywhere actually.

Cy looked out at Tiana’s bayou and watched the alligators start to sing some startlingly good dixieland jazz while a snake accompanied on the trombone, naturally. An alligator with well defined lips played a trumpet as alligators have been known to pick up brass instruments easier than the strings. The leg/arm ratio is all wrong to work most bows effectively. Forget the bass, it just fell to the floor; I know, we have all tried it, but you just can’t accept it until you just see it for yourself.

Ras, with a light french accent argued, “he said he wanted the fish to be bland and overcooked! Merdre! What does bland mean but needs salt?” She smacked down a fizzy concoction of Speedy Gonzales’ Mescal and 7endy-up onto the table top with a napkin over the top. As she chugged down the frothy mixture, Cy could hear “riba. riba. andele. andele. riba.” as Ras finished the drink in one go. Ras had a slightly buzzed expression as pink elephants and, oddly, pink and blue soap bubbles appeared around her.

Juni qua a classic Grace Kelly looked at her friends with perfect blue eyes. “He doesn’t know what he wants. That ‘Jalisco’ poncho that he ‘casually’ tosses on? It only took about twenty revisions from his crazy style guidelines to get ready for mediocre fish barbeque?” She stood and started to pace back and forth. “Oh, look at me, I’m the mighty he-who-must-not-be-seen! Look at my carefully dirtied, ugly a—” she argued until she almost swore. She looked down at her hands, smiled and sat back down, “Well, someone needed to say it.”

Pip qua TikTok, the windup spherical robot from the Wizard of Oz, robotically added “H-E C-A-N S-U-C-K I-T, R-A-S! H-E I-S…”. Lin qua a young woman dressed as Oscar Wilde carefully wound Pip using the key in back and Pip continued: “T-H-E W-O-R-S-T!”. Pip’s clawlike arms grabbed a Mescal bottle from the bar. He tipped the bottle into an awaiting fill hole in his side. The bottle lightly said, “oh. si. riba. andele. muy. muy. si. andele. riba. riba. si…”

Ras slumped forward on the table and knocked over a collection of singing lightning bugs in various bottles. One started singing a song of passionate love to the moon; the moon was unmooned or unmoved or generally unimpressed. Ras said, “What is on my resume from Kane? A million nights of strangely bad meals, but not bad interesting, but bad bad. Who wants fish without salt? Damn it, I’d rather eat the sand on the beach than the fish he asks for!”

Ras muttered during the silence “Well, some people actually had to.”

Lin held Ras by the shoulders and noted softly, “You have nothing to worry about. We’re all here and that’s enough for now.” Ras melted into her friend and they stayed together for a moment while the fireflies sang something about the moonlight and one was consumed by a foreign dignitary under a voodoo curse he deserved for enjoying himself.

Cy broke the musical interlude, “We shouldn’t just keep letting this happen. It’s dangerous for all of us without the income to keep up appearances. Each of us has been out of work at one period or another. We thought by being with the same master we could keep things under control, but Ras just proved that wrong.”

Lin asked quietly but pointedly, “What say you, mighty Affleck. Sway me like a young Jennifer Garner or, if I’m your latin vacation, a rebounding J-Lo?” She started to dance but couldn’t really do J Lo justice until she just put her body under a script’s control. All the while, she kept focus on Cy for his reaction.

Cy eyeballed Lin wryly, “Mas muy caliente, senorita Lin, but my spanish is as solid as my cleft chin. I hear this from Pip actually: there’s a gold mine in old content nearby.”

Pip’s steam whistle fired off at the news and he added “Y-E-A-H B-U-T I-T-S A-T T-H-E M-A-A-A…” and he slumped forward.

Ras looked confused and asked, “Did Pip just say your ‘gold mine’ in ‘old content’ is at the Mall?”

Cy started to sell, “Yes, it’s at the Mall. I know nobody has been to the Mall since…”

Ras finished Cy’s sentence, “… forever, Cy. Forever. Nobody goes to the Mall since we all stopped driving and the buses stopped taking wheelchairs. The Chess King? He’s been deposed for centuries. Miller? He left the Outpost. The nearby Indian tribes took them by surprise and all had OP shorts for free. I think the place is overrun by religious fanatics and like, I hear, carnal meat related food service routines. I can’t even imagine what that might mean, but I’ve seen anthropology reports about the untubbed.”

Cy was ready for Ras’s argument and smoothly offered as only Ben Affleck might, “Nobody said we can’t drive anymore. We just start up again.”

Pip’s steam whistle fired off and he added “D-R-I-V-E! W-I-T-H F-L-E-S-H!” and he slumped forward. Ras continued, “The drive wasn’t the part that really concerned me, Cy. You know there’s like wild herds of untubbed roaming in and around that joint?”

Cy argued, “Who wound up Pip again? Let him rest. Look, Ras, I know it’s a risk, but if we just sit here, somebody else gets to pick how this all ends. Wouldn’t you rather decide your tublife for yourself?”

Juni leaned towards Cy and looked him square in the eyes, “You want us all to drive together. In the flesh?”

Lin’s eyes widened and looked at Cy with a wry smile, “I think Cy has meats to please us and is pleased to meat us, perchance. Are we to have an orgy at the end of the world? What will Minnie say when the gray flesh does the twister in front of the Millers Outpost at the Mall?” Juni looked quite concerned now.

Cy darkened and offered, “We can keep our eyes forward. Eyes on the road ahead. Eyes on the prize, but there’s safety in numbers, and who knows what we’ll find.”

Ras hesitated, “I don’t know. This is too …”

Cy finished Ras’ sentence, “… important for us all. Meet me at the agreed location. I’ll send you the invite via tubmail. Agreed?”

Lin grinned from ear to ear, “You had me at ‘Eyes on the prize’, dear.” and she vanished. Juni watched her friends carefully, caught Cy’s eye and smiled before looking down at her lap. She looked up and nodded her assent soundlessly before she exploded away in a burst of pink taffeta.

Pip looked resigned, he let his springs unwind freely, and faded away without comment. Ras, with appreciative eyes, cried and disappeared with a wet, “yes.”

Cy smiled wanly as he looked at his hands and tried to calm himself for the work ahead.