Stray Cat Strut

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?"

"I am," she said without an ounce of uncertainty.

I glanced at Crackshot, who was smiling like... well, like one of those pictures of a golden retriever who'd just been given a bone. He looked normal otherwise, though I didn't fail to notice that his cowboy hat had a little black skull pin on its band.

"Cool cool. I need to set up this stream thing. I want to show off that we're serious. How do I do that?"

Emoscythe blinked, then looked over the scene. The others were mostly forming into small groups and chatting, but it was obvious that the scene wouldn't hold. "Just let people do whatever they want. If they're visible, then they're visible. I'll try to stay in frame if you wish it, but there's no point in faking things if you can't fake them well."

"Yeah, people can always tell when things are fake," I agreed.

"No, people can tell when the fake is cheaply done," Emoscythe corrected me. "There's a point where the common person's perception stops noticing things. But you won't have to worry about that, I'm sure. What kind of camera are you using?"

"Huh? Oh, I've got a cat drone around here somewhere. They have camera eyes, I think I can use one of those."

Emoscythe did not look impressed. "No, absolutely not," she said. "One moment." She reached a hand out to the side and a box appeared over her splayed fingers.

It was small, made of a dark, lacquered wood with thin insets of a lighter wood forming a sort of mandala pattern across the top that looked a bit like a skull if I squinted. The front had a nice, brassy looking clasp.

It was, by far, the fanciest samurai order box I'd ever seen. Most of the time it was plastic with maybe a logo printed on, this was on a whole other level. She reached down the front of her dress, then tugged a small metal key out. It was on a long string that wrapped around her neck.

I blinked, then tried not to think dirty thoughts as she fit the key into the box's lock and twisted. The clasp came off with a click, and the top opened of its own volition. Out of it came... a doll. Not quite just a doll. Its 'face' was a complex array of small cameras and sensors, all black gunmetal, but the rest of it was designed like a small victorian doll.

It hovered up to eye level and floated there, staring at me... kind of menacingly.

"This is a proper media drone," Emoscythe said. "The kind of thing I used to use when I had my drone phase."

"Drone phase?" I asked.

"We all have one," she said dismissively. "Its cameras are better than anything you can afford right now, so don't be shy. And don't worry, the footage will be downscaled to something appropriate for public consumption. We don't need people learning about the random soldiers in the background by scanning one of their hairs from afar, do we?"

Wait, what kind of resolution would allow for that? "Uh, okay," I said. "Thanks."

Emoscythe walked over, then started to fiddle with my outfit. She adjusted my coat, tugged on my scarf a few times, even licked her fingers then ran them through my hair, which was kind of gross, but she was scary enough that I let her. "There," she said as she stepped back. "You could do with some makeup, but you're never seen with any so it would ruin the illusion."

"What do I say?"

"Never mind that," she said. "You're a samurai. As I was once told, our job is to say 'fuck it we ball' and then do what we think is right. Rehearsal never helped that." She glanced at the drone. "You're live in three."

"What?"

"Two."

"Wait, serio--"

The drone's eyes lit up, and I froze for a second. Then my well-honed bullshittery reflexes kicked in.

"Hey, assholes. Just a friendly head's up; Earth is about to be blown the fuck up in... t-minus not very long, so listen up."

***