"What?"
"What."
"You're joking."
The Secondary Ops Center of G.I. Joe Headquarters was meant to be empty at this hour, but all thoughts of keeping their presence secret had long since left Eject and Firewall's minds. They were surrounded by empty cubes and cans, they'd been watching the huge high-def Ops screen for hours, and now they were both on their feet, mouths agape, and very pissed off.
"I don't believe it. I actually don't believe it," Firewall scowled, downing her last Doubleshot in anger.
"He can't win! That wasn't a fair win at all! No effort! No gamesmanship!" Eject gestured nonspecifically, hands in the air.
"And all his outfits are total Siriano knockoffs. I mean really, he's not even original."
All in all it had been a disappointing Project Runway finale.
"Who's Siriano?"
Firewall grabbed the remote off the couch they'd dragged in at the start of the evening, now sagging from their combined weight. A few clicks pulled up a new browser window; a few more clicks and images of grey fabrics and gauzy silks popped up.
"Primus, you're right."
"I mean, sure, it looked good the first time but – no original ideas! You shouldn't win this thing with no original ideas!" She sank back on the couch, sulking. "And that pantsuit he made out of balloons was awful."
"Was that the red number?"
"Yeah."
"It looked like washrags."
"Yeah!"
They both glowered at the projection screen, watching the winning designer tearfully hug the judges and carry on for the last ten minutes of the program, trying their best to change the outcome with the power of their minds.
"I'm so glad you wanted to watch this with me," Firewall said at last, as Eject sat down in front of the couch to prevent any further damage. "You have no idea how much crap Lady Jaye gives me for watching this stuff. She thinks it's stupid."
"Are you kidding? I've been trying to get some of the other bots back at the Ark to watch this. All the sabotage, the stretched resources, the race against time, the team dynamics…" He finished off his last cube. "Maybe we should start wearing clothes so we can do this instead of killing each other."
"Hmm. That's profound, right there."
The end credits rolled, the company logo floated onscreen, and the program stopped, leaving them with only a still frame and the outline of the media player and the substantial amount of cleanup they had to do.
"You sure you're not going to get in trouble for using the computers at your base?" Eject asked. "'Cause I can tell them it was my call if you want."
"Nah, it's just secondary Ops. Nobody cares if I mess with that."