A Little Bit of Fraud

by Nikki Little

On almost every slide, it seems that one of us gets arrested for something petty. Remmy once said that if there's one constant in every America he's been to, it's that the health care system always sucks. For me, that ever-present constant in nearly every America is that people are always getting arrested for anything and everything. In every America, the jails are always full. This time it was Maggie and I who got arrested. We hadn't been out of the vortex even sixty seconds when a cop stepped up in front of Maggie and me, looked us both up and down like a john looking for a "date," and then slapped handcuffs on both of us. "Fraud," the cop said. No reading of rights or anything. Off to the pokey with both of us.

This turned out to be an America where women never got the right to vote. In this America ruled entirely by men, artificial enhancements to women's appearance beyond obvious makeup was considered fraud. Maggie got nailed for fake boobs and I got nailed for fake hair color.

"You'd think that they would have at least verified their accusation against me," Maggie griped with an enormous sigh. "Maybe an x-ray or something?"

"You mean those are real?" I said with sarcasm and disbelief dripping out of my voice.

"Of course they're real!" exclaimed Maggie. "I was a fighter pilot! Do you know how cramped the cockpit of a fighter plane is these days? Only an idiot would get implants while working as a pilot! I'm wearing a push-up padded bra, just like you." Maggie stared at my chest as if it were obvious that my chest was fake. Okay, rub it in Maggie. Yes, I'm a near-flatsie. It was true that I was wearing a padded, pushup bra. I had so little to start with that I didn't get nailed for implants like Maggie.

"That blazing red hair of yours, it's real isn't it?" asked Maggie.

"Yeah, it's real," I said. I had been dying it auburn, but I ran out of money to have it dyed. Nobody in their right mind would have their hair dyed a red this bright. My natural hair color nearly glows in the dark.

Maggie laughed. "It seems that we're both getting screwed over, doesn't it? Those Fox executives have you and me both with our boobs shoved halfway up to our chins and wearing skimpy tank tops. They have me stripped half-naked on almost every show. Bunch of damn perverts!"

I opened the cell door and Maggie and I walked out into the setting sun of the studio lot grumbling that Fox was ruining the show.

NBC Universal Television Distribution owns the copyrights to Sliders.