Downtime 5 - Pretti

As she was admiring her cyberlegs, Pretti was feeling out of sorts. It would be a waste to not put these legs to good use, so she began to think of ways to do that.

Pretti activates her skates as asked, and Akina taps the controls on her wheelchair, pulling Pretti down the hall.

“What are you doing?” Pretti asks.

“Reciprocating,” Akina replies. She then goes on to explain the word. It’s a rather kind way to tell Pretti she owes a favor.

“Oh, of course I can do that,” Pretti says—and way too quickly, Akina warns her.

“Anyone else would have lowered their price.”

“Oh! You’re paying me.”

Akina stops her wheelchair just to give Pretti a look.

A Whirlwind Heat
by MK

So, I was at the Skate or Die: Hyper Champion Edition tourney, and I got more than I bargained for. First of all, the cosplayer holding the Round # signs looked hot as Disco Janet—and the girl is a skater IRL!

But once the games begun, the real dramatic battles were the ones that happened off-screen!


The blog then mentions the players and their chosen characters, all of whom are anime characters on some kind of skate. “Who are all these characters? Is Faye Jillentine from the hot spring episode of—”

“I’ll fill you in later,” MK snaps. She just wants Pretti to read the blog and give an opinion so she can post (not that Pretti ever criticized any of MK’s blogs).

“You really think I was hot? Even next to Bad Janet in all her pleather?”

MK’s look compels Pretti to just shut up and read.

And as the audience chanted “Roy’s our boy! Roy’s our boy!” Little Lebowski Junior whipped his official tourney comm at Elroy Jinxin’s head and stormed off.

They had to call in the biggest of the wigs, Director Ed Tuo XI, to get a replacement. And that’s when Jinxin himself said he wanted someone world class.

Spoiler alert!


Pretti looks confused as she reads the big reveal. “Why so many sixty-nines? It should be like exclamation points: one or none. Game-boys and their pseudonyms!”

The night before the big event, Pretti receives the message from Akina, confirming her talents are needed:

>>>>> Hey, Disco Janet. Roy the Boy’s a cheat.
>>>>> He hacks the comm link provided for the tournament.
>>>>> Swap his comm link with an identical one.

Akina goes on to give images mapping out where to go, when to be there, how long the job will take…

…and what the job pays.

>>>>> I’m in!!!

Pretti sends a message to Emiko:

>>>>> Emiko, instead of a drink, how’s this for reciprocation:
>>>>> I got you a seat at the tournament!
>>>>> It’s actually MY seat, but no worries. I’m too busy between rounds.
>>>>> And you can sit with MK. She’s in the press section, so the seats are good.
>>>>> Only problem: Tampon Sam would still need to get a ticket at the door, and all that’s available are nosebleed seats.
>>>>> Is he coming? Are you? Want my seat? Lemme know!
>>>>> , PR3π1

>>>>> that would be fantastic
>>>>> thank you very much!
>>>>> I look forward to meeting MK


Emiko thinks about mentioning Sam playing in the tournament but chooses not to after remembering how he wants to keep the shadowrunner and game star lives separate.

>>>>> it will just be me
>>>>> and it’s more like Ladies Man Sam
>>>>> you’ll see when you meet him

>>>>> He must be a great guy, from the one story so far.
>>>>> I’ll have to meet Sam another time.
>>>>> Upside: enjoy the free seat!

Pretti sends her e-ticket to Emiko.

Was gonna sit with MK during the show, but something came up.
>>>>> Will tell you after!

At the Tourney…
Pretti skates out with the Semifinal Round 2 sign. She zips around the ring, does a couple twirls—not her hardest stunts so she can do one better for the final round.

From the looks of things, that Balls-Deep guy won his semi. Now the crowd is chanting Roy’s our boy. Pretti watches him select his skate-fighter. He chooses Galileo, a naginata-wielding tortoise from the anime, Middle-Age Cyber Samurai Tortoises.

“Cowabunga! Get off my lawn!” the avatar shouts as he hops on his board. The opponent chooses Tanya’s Hardling, who looks like a hockey goalie except he has a lead pipe instead of a stick. “On yer knees while you still have ’em, princess,” the onscreen masked man snarls.

Pretti doesn’t bother to watch the match. From what Akina said, Elroy Jinxin’s comm link is hacked. The tourney has players get a new comm link between rounds so there’s no time to actually hack them—only Elroy got some help from an inside man who plants a hacked device in the cubby.

It’s by the men’s room, so all Pretti needs to do is swap an identical comm link for the one remaining while Elroy pretends to be on the john too long.


In the Men’s Room
Pretty sits in a stall, well aware her clawed metal feet are visible to anyone who peeks under a door. But all the guys in here want to do is their business.

So my first Shadowrun involves sitting on a toilet for half an hour? Where’s the rush Emiko was talking about?! I just wanna rush outta here! I mean, what did these guys eat?! I never stunk up a room this bad when I had an ass!

Pretti spends another ten minutes or so silently griping about her surroundings, until she finally sees Elroy’s red tatami slippers. She waits a few seconds and—

Now.

—exits her stall. She quietly steps toward the door, and—oh, SHIT!—Elroy’s stall door just opens right up. He didn’t even have time to—

“What are you doing here?” Elroy asks Pretti.

“Me? I… well… y’know. What everybody does here.” Fuck. He’s onto me—it’ll get to Akina—that can’t be goo—

“Not everybody. Your body should be in the little girls’ room, Interplanet Janet.”

Who? Oh, right—my Galaxy Girls cosplay. “I’m an anatomically-incorrect robot from the waist down. I just go where the shorter lines are.” Exiting the restroom door, Pretti adds, “Don’t forget to wash your hands, Roy my boy.”

>>>>> Hey, Akina!
>>>>> I’m about to skate out with the Final Round sign!
>>>>> May the best gamer win!

Well… a successful swap. Now I just hope I don’t fall on my face in front of MK and Emiko!

Pretti grabs her Final Round sign and zips out to the arena…!

After speeding around the ring with a Final Round sign, ending her routine with a flying spin kick off the halfpipe, Pretti skates over to the aisle where MK and Emiko are seated.

By that time, there is only one fighter still standing onscreen.



She halves Elroy’s cyber-samurai tortoise from cranium to crotch, and says dismissively, “Zero on a half shell.” She then skates toward the background while the game’s camera gratuitously focuses on the character’s scantily clad butt.

“Guess Sam wins the day,” Pretti says.

MK doesn’t seem to notice Pretti somehow being on a first-name basis with the winner. She is already on her device:

Roy’s Our Scrub
So, that sucked.

Our tourney ends with a nine-second match? What am I supposed to do with all this popcorn?

Bright side: B@llzDeEp696969 picked the street samurai girl from Gunspike. Classic!

As the crowd starts to disperse, Pretti says to Emiko, “Well, I’m just gonna change out of my Janet costume. I can still get you that round, if you wanna hear about my ‘run.’

“And I’m not talking about skating,” she adds with a proud grin. (Proud after reading Akina’s reaction. And the money helps, too.)

Emiko says, "You were great out there! Yeah, a round sounds like a good plan, I'd love to."

“You really liked my skating, huh?” Pretti gives an almost embarrassed laugh. “Glad you came and doubled the number of people who noticed.

“Anyway, skating isn’t even the best part of my night. I’ll tell you at the Finish Line. And you can tell me how things went with Spyder, if it’s a thing you’re allowed to talk about.”

Pretti waits patiently for MK to slip her comm back in her purse.

Pretti is obviously madly in love with MK, but also doesn’t try to force her to be more than a listener in the conversation.

At the bar, she tells Emiko about her first run. “It was a favor for a friend,” she starts. And though it’s not exactly her proudest moment in life, she aims for an accurate retelling. “I thought if I got in there before the intermission, no one would suspect there’s a girl in the boys’ room.” She tells Emiko and MK what she said when Elroy caught her exiting the restroom.

“Funny thing is, my friend was already happy with me soon as I told her I did the job. She was so sure Sam would win in a legit match. And that Elroy… wow, he might actually be worse at video games than me. You should see me and MK play Monster Watch. My watcher-lady’s always getting rushed offscreen by the medi-cats.”

Having told her story—all of it except the identity of her employer—she asks Emiko, “How about yourself? Any opportunities with Spyder?”

Back at Finish Line, Emiko waves at Yuusuke and says 'hello' to Spyder if she's still there.

Emiko listens to Pretti's story and interjects once in a while.
"You had to wait an hour in the men's bathroom for an hour? Gross!" "You said that to him? Nice." "You switched commlinks that easily? You're as quick as you are a great skater."

Emiko doesn't want to let it known that the Sam Pretti is talking about is also a shadowrunner so she nods and sips her drink during that part of the conversation.  Instead she says, "I'm sure Elroy is still better at video games than me. I'm the worst."

"No opportunities with Spyder, at least nothing yet. We did chat for a little bit and I think she trusts that I'm sincere but I'll have to wait and see how things play out.  So now that you're an accomplished runner, what's your next step? " (pun intended)

Pretti has actually thought about it.

“I guess I could use some advice there. I mean… I don’t really care about thwarting cheaters. Like I said, favor for a friend. She probably placed a bet or something, or why pay me to un-fix a fight?

“But I want to make a difference to people that… I dunno… the world doesn’t really care about? Not to make this about me, but I lost half my body ’cause two gang-bangers were fighting in public. I was just a nobody to them.” She glances back at MK, stifling her urge to hold that precious hand (which is more PDA than MK can bear), and says, “Not that I’m complaining. MK and I met because of the incident.”

Pretti sends a link.

“She interviewed me, and kept coming back every visiting hour. Sometimes, she just sat beside me while working on her blog, or told me about the elusive Pokébakers—all 951 of them—to distract me from reality. She wrote updates on my recovery, and the blog went viral—attracted some big donors, and a couple really big donors. Without my sweet princess, all I could have afforded was a plastic ass on a skateboard.”

Her lovey-dovey eyes narrow with determination. “I want my next run to really matter.” But with an inquisitive curl of the lips, she adds, “Y’know what I mean?”

Pretti says, “Thanks for caring, Yuusuke. And yes, another round.”

Undeterred by the warning, she turns to Emiko to hear out her take on the business.

"That hunk does have a good point. The good I usually do for someone is very one-sided. You want to know why I do what I do?"

Emiko takes a swig of her drink, thinks for a moment, and says, "you ever been on a roller coaster? It twists and turns and sometimes goes upside down. Also, there's that beginning part where you slowly go up and the anticipation is intense? I really enjoy that! That's what this is to me, a thrilling adventure. From my apartment the other morning, I just finished a job and I'm sitting by the window sipping my tea and I'm watching people starting their daily routine. Get up, go to work, maybe watch some shows, repeat repeat repeat. I can't live like that, I need excitement."

Emiko leans in even closer, "you felt it, didn't you? Those moments... figuring out how to execute your plan or like waiting in the stall for the guy... Did you get a sense of excitement?"

She now leans back, "if the answer is 'yes' then I have some friends for you to meet."  

She finishes her drink and waves for more drinks to be delivered.

“Yes,” Pretti says. “Not to the menu… I mean, maybe. But I mean, yes, I did feel it. When I saw the red slippers, and even more so when he saw me—my heart raced! Oh, and then there was the message popping up from my contact, who’s… y’know, a friend. But she’s also a businesswoman, and I think she was more than fair about the pay.

“I’d love to meet your friends. Fun as these costumed skating gigs are, shadowrunning pays way better. And I’ve been training up these legs for more than shows.” Giving MK a gentle touch, she adds, “I want to earn my keep. What about you, MK. Do you want fries, karaoke, or watch a couple episodes of—what are we on now?”

MK knows damn well Pretti is referring to an anime series that they binge watch together.

Pretti is happy to see MK is still in a sociable mood, even when offered the out.

“Care to join us, Emiko?”