::I Want You! To Spread Propaganda – Brain Babies::
[ Subject ] YOU ARE IN SUCH SHIT
From: "DocKartwright"
To: "AssMaster9001"
COCKSUCKING CHRIST WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO
I JUST GOT MY ASS RIPPED BECAUSE I TOLD THEM YOUD COOPERATE
DO YOU MIND EXPLAINING WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED LAST NIGHT?
-Dr. Haley Kartwright, PhD
[ Subject] Re: YOU ARE IN SUCH SHIT
From: "AssMaster9001"
To: "DocKartwright"
They cocked it up first. They said one guy, two showed up. Also I assumed the job would have been something, I don't know, LESS STUPID?
I told you when we made this deal, I'd retain the right to refuse. They can't act like all the power is in their court. I've been humiliating their guys for YEARS. They have to at least respect THAT and try to treat me on some kind of equal terms. Otherwise, we can go back to the old dance- I'm sure the rednecks out here need more target practice.
[insert witty signature here]
[ Subject ] Re: Re: YOU ARE IN SUCH SHIT
From: "DocKartwright"
To: "AssMaster9001"
They never agreed to your right to say no. We are talking about the fucking executive branch here, for fuck's sake. Lemurs fellating bananas, you actually thought you were going to get a fair shake out of this? They don't RESPECT you, you're just a tool they want to use. And if they can't use you, they'd rather you GONE than operating on your own.
Fuck fuck fuck why did I agree to mediate this- oh right, because it was the only way to keep my fucking job. Which I'm not doing, because I got 'invited' to the capitol as your fucking representative.
They're putting it on a timetable; if you don't deliver by the end of the month, we're both toast. And for you, that's probably literal. BTW, they didn't TELL me that, I've been listening at fucking doors for you.
Swallow your goddamned pride and just do it.
-Dr. Haley Kartwright, PhD
[ Subject ] Re: Re: Re: YOU ARE IN SUCH SHIT
From: "AssMaster9001"
To: "DocKartwright"
I AM NOT A MARKETING MACHINE. I figured they were gonna ask me to do shit like rig an election, put spin on shitty decisions made by various leadership, distract the news cycle so shady shit could be gotten away with- I was READY to participate in that kind of underhanded bullshit, mainly figuring I could out-underhand them and turn it all inside-out after a couple of months.
THEY DON'T SCARE ME. THEY'VE BEEN TRYING TO CAPTURE ME MY WHOLE FUCKING LIFE. IF IT'S GONNA TURN TO KILLING, I'LL START A FUCKING REVOLUTION. I COULD OVERTURN THE GOVERNMENT IN A WEEK. DO THEY WANT ANARCHY? THIS COULD START TONIGHT
[insert witty signature here]
[ Subject ] Re: Re: Re: Re: YOU ARE IN SUCH SHIT
From: "DocKartwright"
To: "AssMaster9001"
You and I both know you won't do that. The US is too big a player on the world stage, and you wouldn't commit to that kind of human cost. Even if you decided to supplant the president with a puppet, you don't know how to control an entire government, and I'm betting you really don't want to put your whole life aside to try and learn how to handle that many moving pieces and keep them all in balance with one another.
I know you're mad, but these are the facts. If you don't do as you've been told by the 31st, the President will put a price on your head.
I'll keep my ear to the ground, here, and see what I can find out that might be useful in the future. Last I heard, they were sending someone in to keep an eye on you. I'd stay wary of new faces.
It's an easy job, kid. Just deal with it.
-Dr. Haley Kartwright, PhD
Dee had stolen away to the bathroom during forth hour to text some friends in peace about Bebe's fashion show... but before she could even get to that, she found Dr. Kartwright had e-mailed her. Subject line aside, it was a frustrating exchange that left her exhausted and unsure of anything she could say in response that would be anything more than posturing. She did a great deal of that- puffing herself up and acting as if she had a greater threat lurking just out of sight, bluffing her way through encounters and managing to pass through on intimidation alone... but Kartwright had seen her at her worst, and knew exactly where Dee stood when shit hit the fan.
After all, Kartwright was the one who killed her.
A version of her, anyhow. One who came to deliver information from an aborted timeline where South Park had been taken over by zombies created by a CDC experiment gone terribly wrong. That version of her had been infected, and so her death had been a necessity. In the end, she'd led Kartwright out to the woods and knelt in the leaf litter, quite literally asking to be put down before she succumbed to the change. She wasn't the sort to fight for herself and only herself until the bitter end. When others were involved, when people she cared about were at risk? She would lay herself down and accept whatever fate she had to, no matter how abhorrent. That was the type of human she was, and Kartwright knew it.
She supposed she just had to consider herself lucky that the government hadn't yet figured out that threatening her friends would be effective manipulation. So long as they were only threatening her, she could go on thumbing her nose at them as much as possible.
"Dude? You've been in there for fuckin' fifteen minutes. Everything okay?"
A voice spooked her out of her musings, having taken a stall in the boy's bathroom to enjoy the privacy of the shitter and concern herself with her phone.
The voice that called her out was a familiar muffled tone; Kenny. They shared forth hour Social Studies, and normally did their work together. She knew that he'd been worried about her all day- in fact, it seemed a number of her peers were worried about her after bearing witness to her mad sprint around the gym. Apparently it wasn't hard to tell when a teenager had a bee in their bonnet from action and expressions alone, particularly when that action was extremely public and involved very nearly crashing into several dozen other kids who were just trying to coast through the worst part of their Friday.
Kenny, however, was closer than most and his concern was of a more understanding sort; he'd been there, he knew what happened... and, possibly the worst part, he wanted to help.
Dee reached out, unlatching the bathroom door and letting it swing open, finding Kenny on the other side with his hands stuffed into his pockets for a casual posture. Shoulders rounded down, his gangly frame leaned against a portion of the tiled wall as if he expected to be waiting awhile... or maybe he had been waiting awhile, and just hadn't spoken up until now. Outwear wasn't allowed to be worn at the middle school during the day, so he was left instead in an old long-sleeve shirt that might have been white a decade ago, but was now beige with a number of darker stains throughout, worn with jeans that were patched at the knees with oddly patterned fabric, red with yellow dots here, blue paisley there- though stitched into place by a practiced hand; probably his. This look was completed by a scarf he wrapped over his face, since it wasn't outlawed by the school dress code, that looked like it were on the verge of fraying and sat on the spectrum somewhere between orange and yellow without a good definition of which one it wanted to be.
For a moment, she considered showing him the chain of e-mails... but that would lead back to a discussion she didn't want to have. She hadn't told him what the job was, either. Simply that she was insulted by it. Kartwright's stressing that it was a simple, easy thing would probably end up with him pushing her in the same direction; to just swallow her pride and do it.
More so when a threat on her life had been leveled.
Damnit, but it was about more than pride! It was about these fuckers understanding that no meant no, and they couldn't treat her like this. She'd tried to make a deal because she was sick of the status quo that was always threatening to force her and her family into moving again for fear of capture. She was sick of being afraid, but damnit if these government assholes wanted nothing but to make fear the core of their supposed working relationship.
Looking up at Kenny, she wasn't sure what kind of look to give him. She was usually quite good at talking to him without talking, but how in the world did she express the kind of shit that was going on in her skull right now? Even with words, she'd have a hard time of it. And she didn't dare speak at school- not in an bathroom where any rando could walk in and hear, if not her voice, the echo of it bouncing off the tiled walls after she'd already shut her damn trap.
"Jesus, is your brain dicked up that badly?" Kenny pushed himself off of the wall, approaching and removing one hand from his pocket, offering it to help her up off of the porcelain goddess. "... still, you look like you're doing better than this morning. You were fucking dead. Cartman called your dad a cake-huffing faggot and you didn't even blink."
… good to know, I'll just not invite him the next time dad makes goodies. With a sigh, she accepted the hand, pitching up onto her feet and exiting the stall to wander into the main space of the bathroom. Given the ability to do so, she turned herself away from him, lips pressed together and her nose crinkled upwards.
Finally, she decided.
She handed over her phone.
Kenny was a quick reader, accepting the device and scrolling through the e-mail chain until he got to the bottom, where she had a drafted reply that contained mostly angry teenager 'you can't control me' language that ultimately meant nothing. With her phone still in his hand, head bent to study the screen, he noted "Well, your Halloween just got a bit more interesting."
She blinked. That was right- end of the month, the 31st of October; Halloween. Do or die, what a perfect time for it.
He handed back her phone, and she braced herself for the incoming lecture; that quiet complacency was the way to go, that safety was the way to go.
"So, what's the plan?"
Her head jerked in his direction as her phone slipped into the kangaroo pocket of her electric blue hoodie, her hand remaining in there with it as a resting position for her current stance. Huh?
"What? Have you just been sulking in here this whole time? No ideas? No clever ways to say fuck you? Nothing?"
She had to blink at him for a few seconds... before a smile curled up onto her face. I seem to remember someone mentioning that if I made the plans, we'd be seven shades of fucked by now... or something like that. Her shoulders rose up, squared and proud instead of slouched and disheartened. And then, just as she was about to lift her free hand up to her brow to indicate she was still thinking about it... it hit her. She did have something she could do- and it most certainly would be her own flavor of fuck you to those sitting pretty in the White House, thinking they could just bark orders at her an expect her to meekly obey like a frightened child. Her half-raised arm shifted, palm flipping up as her fingers snapped, and her eyes lit up with the excitement of an idea that came forward out of the mire and murk of her stressed out gray-matter to shine.
Kenny witnessed this transformation with a faint "Oookay." Before letting out a laugh. "Your brain got so fucked it had a baby, huh?"
Fingers that had snapped in her eureka moment were slapped over her mouth, stifling a laugh and lunging at him, her other arm snapping outwards so her pocketed hand could emerge and punch him in the shoulder for nearly making her lose it at school. He stepped out of the way, of course, having seen the hit coming. His mouth may have been covered, but she could tell by the press of his cheeks up under his eyes that he was grinning beneath that concealing scarf.
Bitchtits, what have I told you about making me laugh in public? She glared at him over a beaming smile she couldn't deny, snorting back concealed giggles as she shook her fist at him.
"Yeah, yeah, shake your fist, see if I care. Plotting party after school? We should get Wendy in on this, too."
Oh shit, yes. Good idea. You're full of those. Her nodding was vigorous.
For now, however, they needed to get back to class.
::The Author's Corner::
So, fun fact about this story- I wrote a more detailed outline for it than I usually do for my work. Usually my outlines are three sections; Conflicts, Resolutions, and Twists, with a bullet pointed list below each. This keeps things simple, reminds me of all the basic shit I need to make the narrative work, while leaving me plenty of room to add... for lack of a better term, personality in-between the main bits of the plot. By the mid-point of any piece of writing, I've begun to depart from this kind of outline because the places where my characters were able to take agency, they took so much agency that they completely changed where the fuck I was going with this.
This time 'round, I took my bullet points and wrote a much more detailed outline, fleshing out the skeleton of the story with some connective tissue, some wheres and whens and whos and whys that I tend to just intuitas I go when they're not integral to the plot, as well as personal interactions and maybe a couple of clever lines I want to make sure I get in there. I figured this would give me more to work with, and avoid a sudden dip in the middle of the story where I'm panicking and trying to make it work because goddamnit Dee could you just be predictable for five seconds I'd really love that.
… we departed from the outline in the first chapter. I mean, I'm still using it, but not as an outline. More as a vague guideline as Dee goes "What? You wanted me to not be a belligerent asshole? Sorry, no can do, boss, IMMA FUCK IT ALL UP."
On another subject, I have no idea what genre to tuck this story into. Again. Suggestions are welcome. I'm keeping it as general fiction for now because shit I suck at categories.
ONWARDS!
-Buttlord