[b]Numb:[/b]

Numb isn’t chastised at all, but emboldened. This is workshopping for the article now.

“Nah, corporations at Pride rules. They pay a lot of money to get dunked on, like, thanks, brain geniuses.” She shakes her head. “This is more like… We know we’re going to be performing for them to be accepted, because we know we aren’t. Like the people in here are going to be smiling, waving, paying for everything, chill. Allies! That’s cool, love them, mumma needs to get that fuckin’ [i]bag[/i]. But it’s like…” she fumbles for the words, but she’s excited to have the pushback, she’s excited to have the challenge to try to have to explain this. “It’s like, when they get here, there’s a lot of pressure to act right, ‘cause there’s a gun on the table, right? And they didn’t put it there, but they’re not taking it away either. They’re the scouting party for the mothership, deciding if we’re [i]worthy[/i] or if it’s just kind of tragic that there were a couple of good ones caught up in all this. It kills the art because it’s like trying to be horny in front of your parents.”

“Corporations don’t scare me like that, because they aren’t really people. Flooding the space with cishet whities though is like, it’s like, fuck, it’s like being trapped in a tiny room with a cow and trying to convince it not to freak out, because it’ll stomp you into paste. No offense to the cow-girls here, who are hot and based. Also saw a cow guy once. Not like, a bull, but a cow guy. LIke, a masc cow? Even his milk tasted butch. It was wild.” She laughs.

It’s a story that would get a very different reaction from today’s crowd than tomorrow’s. 


[b]Leather:[/b]

Leather gets the message. 

“I’ve decided I hate this, actually.” He declares, and the audience laughs. “No, really. Permission is good consent practice, the fists are just distracting. But the valuables is… It’s not just that I can’t just get the guy the rest of the way out, it’s that I have to know he’s there and run past him if I want to scrub. But the longer I stay, the more ‘viruses’ I’m getting, the more danger I’m in. It’s-”

Talking is not a free action. 

> Must high five your reflection every time you see it

He shuts up and leaves the Rudy mannequin in the windowsill. Heavier-than-air fire suppressants start to go off, and the smouldering stops. He pushes his way through the soundnetting that blocks the smoke - it parts like a curtain of mist for him, and closes behind him, letting out a hookah puff of black smoke with him. From a nearby cheap plywood folding table in front of the audience chairs he grabs a towel and bucket and starts vigorously wiping himself down. The water turns thick and tar-like. 

“Now, before we wrap up, I just want to say that these simulations aren’t completely randomly generated. Based on the audience suggestions, we pull up real cases. In this case, first responders could not get to Mr Merkin in time. By the time first responders could rappel into the scene, no body was recoverable. If someone had been there faster-” He lets the implication, the call to action, hang in the air before pushing through to the Klingon teleporter triangle.

“You think we were really hacked?” Leather asks you, quietly, severely. You have his full belief and confidence here. 


[b]Monk:[/b]

Green’s confident assertion actually gives the green mask pause, so she switched back to Tranquility and thinks. “Did you hear a different version of the story?” She asks. “Yours does make sense.” Her eyes widen, and there’s a sigh of relief. “No, that can’t be right, then. It has to hurt you to think about to be true Buddhism.” 

Black gets an understanding nod.

Brown gets a cock of the head. The mask changes again to a dark orange mask, with a furrowed brow and a thoughtful twist of its lips like it’s chewing on a pencil. “How many do you have? I think I have almost one hundred faces now, though many are more specialized. There’s; Authority, Accountancy, Amnesty, Apathy, Augury, Apostasy, Artistry, Bully, Clergy, Crony, Deity, Dracony, Diplomacy, Duchy, Elegy, Enmity, Entropy, Effigy, Economy, Exigency, Frenzy, Fervency, Felony, Gadfly, Giddy-” 

She switches to the green face again and waves. “That was me!” then back to the dark orange face which is, likely, Accountancy. 

“Gastronomy, Gunnery, Gypsy, Gravity, Glory, Glossary, Geometry, Granny, Gaiety, History, Hilarity, Homely, Hardy, Inquiry, Idiocy, Irony, Impunity, Industry, Imagery, Intimacy, Intricacy, Intensity, Insurgency, Intrepidity, Jealousy, Janissary, Kitty, Lovely, Lunacy, Liberty, Legality, Lechery, Lethargy, Monkey, Mercy, Memory, Morality, Mockery, Mystery, Mutiny, Motherly (or Mummy), Necrology, Neutrality, Novelty, Notary, Numeracy, Oratory, Pedagogy, Poetry, Recovery, Remedy, Ribaldry, Sobriety, Smithy, Security, Sentry, Timidity, Temerity, Understudy, Vanity…”

She runs a hand over her face, and she’s Tranquility again. “It’s a problem when two are too similar. They fight over which is better for the specific situation. I used to switch between them a lot to try to get a balance of opinions, but these days I try to keep a few in rotation at a time for a situation and stick it out the whole way through. And some, like Idiocy and Jealousy, I keep because if it ever tells me it’s appropriate for a situation I take it as a warning. I imagine with fewer faces, you have to deal with a lot less indecision!”