Day One #4
“I kind of panicked,” Kelli confessed. It startled her how quickly those words fell out—somehow, it was easy to talk about something like this.
Kelli had always talked more garrulously about some things than others.
“You know, there I was, having my shot at supervising an actual episode of an AdventureVerse show. They wanted Tahmina to encounter someone who seemed like a villain at first, but turned out to be on her side, someone who hadn’t been in any media before because that would spoil the surprise, and they wanted me to use KernelGen to write the draft character kernel.
Even full-time supervisors don’t get a task like that very often—but it was a test, right?
And it was all I’d ever wanted to do. And my one big chance at having a professional career depended on doing it right.
I was so terrified, my mind went blank. I couldn’t come up with anybody.
I tried a couple generic prompts and watched what the system spat out, but none of it felt right.
None of it felt like it would make me different from all those other people who’d applied, who wanted this just as bad as I did.
And then the next day I woke up—I had until the end of that second day to hand in a draft kernel—and I thought, well, I know what I’ll do.
I’ll just put in the dashing lady pirate captain that I already thought of in second grade; she’d fit this plot. ”
Orlande the Pirate had been one of many recurring characters in the games that Kelli and Rowan and certain other friends played.
Kelli had seen the name in some book and thought it was the most dashing and sophisticated name ever.
Back then, she’d been seven years old, and she hadn’t known the real reason why she wanted so badly to imagine women who were dashing and sophisticated and brave.
Rowan took a long sip of his coffee. “I wondered if you’d turned her into a man because of me.”
“I didn’t! Actually, it’s a funny story.
” Kelli leaned forward. She wasn’t used to being able to talk about this with people who didn’t already know.
“Baz—that’s my boss—came back to me the next day and said he loved the new character kernel, it was perfect, except could I please make the pirate a man?
He said piracy is such dirty work, and maybe a woman might dabble in it, but she’d never be a captain like Orlande—not without all kinds of conflicts with the men that would get too ugly for Rising Adventurers.
I told him there had been lady pirate captains in Earth’s history, actually, and he said that’s not the point, history’s not what we write.
” She sipped from her vanilla hazelnut coffee again, swigging it like a stronger drink now, like she was one of Orlando’s crewmates herself.
“And I couldn’t say no—it was my one chance at being a professional.
But I had this tiny little rebellious feeling.
So I went into the draft, and instead of asking KernelGen to make her a man for me, I just changed exactly one letter on my own.
E to an O. I changed all the she/hers to he/hims. And then that’s all I did.
It took five minutes and at the end of those five minutes I sent it right back, no other changes.
It’s still the same character. Baz loved it, he was like, you’re cheeky but it works, so here I am. ”
Rowan grinned. “I love it, too. So what’s your master plan?”
“My what?”
“You know.” He gestured, vague and expansive.
“Once you’re settled, once you can take the bigger creative risks because even Baz can’t argue with your track record?
How are you planning to upend the system then?
Maybe the AdventureVerse’s first lesbian romance?
The first openly trans character, very big deal?
Or a historically accurate lady pirate captain?
Maybe Orlando retires one day and Narine climbs the ranks.
Or maybe your show gets so big, so popular, that everyone knows your name and then you bust out with a show that was written just by you.
Your actual pure imagination, unmediated by the language model, just to show the whole Jovian system that you can do it. That humans still can.”
“Rowan . . .” Kelli pushed her cup and saucer away, suddenly no longer thirsty. “It doesn’t work like that.”
For the first time in this whole conversation, he looked startled. “Did I get the wrong Kelli Reynolds?”
“It’s been ten years.” She stared at the saucer.
Usually Rowan’s big, dark, reflective eyes were easier to deal with than other people’s, but right now, she couldn’t look at them.
“And—I’ve learned better. Billions of people depend on AdventureVerse as part of the fabric of their lives, the narrative that brings them all together.
You can’t go changing how something like that works, willy-nilly.
You can’t go charging through, breaking things, shouting for justice.
You saw what happened before when I acted like that. I’m being good now.”
Rowan let out a long breath. She was aware she had profoundly disappointed him.
“They’ve got rules, right?” he said carefully. “All these rules for what a human can say, and how they can say it. Do you . . . think they’re the right rules? Do you agree with all that, now?”
“No, I don’t.” She drew herself up, a little offended. After what they’d been through, he should know better than that.
“But you don’t trust yourself to make waves.”
“I guess.” Kelli wasn’t sure if that was the whole explanation, but it was close.
“Deep down—not that I have any right to ask you about your deepest feelings, after not talking to you for ten years; feel free to tell me to fuck off here—but, deep down, you still wish it was different?”
“Yes—of course.”
It was just that she was no longer sure what needed to be different—the rules, or Kelli herself.
She couldn’t tell anymore which of her bouts of irritation were righteous anger against an unjust system, and which were just the malformed mind she’d been born with, set off by everything, raging in every direction it could.
Because that was the thing about anger. It always felt righteous at the time.
Kelli closed her eyes. In for four; hold for four.
“If that’s how you feel,” said Rowan after a pause, “I’ve got something on my spaceship that you might want to see. Might clarify a few things.”
“Your spaceship?!” Kelli spluttered.
“You didn’t think my client was right here on Callisto? If they lived on Callisto, they could have just walked over and seen you themselves.”
Okay, so maybe Rowan was in debt for more than one reason. Personal spaceships weren’t unheard of, for professionals whose jobs required a lot of travel, but still. “I have not agreed to meet your client,” said Kelli. “Or to go off Callisto with you. Or anywhere. Ever.”
But when he tapped his payment card and pushed away from the table, she couldn’t stop herself; she trailed after him. Just the way she and every other girl had followed Rowan around, back in the old days, when he went by a different name.