16. On the Same Wavelength #4
Maybe this was just another excuse for me to hold to, knowing that she deserved a life away from the imps.
Yet she knew our work was more important than any lumen-producing career.
My mind was vacillating between justifications and accusations against our reasons to be together. None of it mattered. She was sharp. With it more than me. I trusted her decision and would accept it with joy and sorrow.
We followed them out of the building, listening to the girls complain about the swarm of fans who had remained in the building for a chance to see them. Behind their complaints, they waved as the security guards pressed back the fans whose desperate fingers reached out to touch their false gods.
The guards pressed the crowd away from the skyride with blue light shields with pulsing batons in their hands as a warning to any fans who thought they deserved to be an exception.
Naoma and I sat across from 3Rochi in the cabin of the white skyride limousine.
Koro breathed out and slouched against the couch-sized seats as the doors closed and cut off the roar of the crowd. “I’m zeggin sick of the back-to-back pop-ups.”
“Same.” Kao tapped a button and a table rose from the center with drinks. She took a glass of water and offered it to her sisters. Only Kyo accepted.
Kyo raised a glass out to Naoma, who declined. “You ready to get back to this, Nay?”
“I…um…” She stared out the window at the crowd, whose gazes shot towards us despite the tinted glass.
Koro pounded the partition behind her. “Let’s zegging go already!” She looked at Naoma. “Sorry.”
“No, thank you. I…” She sighed.
“Need a break?” Kao asked.”Private time with her boy?” Kyo asked.
Kao shook her head, then pointed to me. “Press the button on your right to raise the partition on your side. You didn’t watch the news yet, did you?”
“Look at how flustered she is now,” Koro said. “You think she had time to watch that in her periphery on the way down?”
Kyo shrugged. “Maybe she likes to multitask.”
Koro rolled her eyes. “Kao is right, give yourself time to catch up on the coverage. Especially you.” She pointed at me. “We’ll have plenty of time to catch up.”
“But drop the partition if you want to chat about it!” Kyo leaned forward, almost worrying me that she was going to slide herself between us. “I want to hear all about your little political side, Petya Nebokov.”
Koro smacked her arm. Kyo just laughed.
Kao ignored her sisters. “Take your time.”
Naoma smiled. “Thank you.”
I pressed the button and breathed out as the sounds from 3Rochi turned to a muffled silence.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“What do they know about you?”
“Is it that bad if they–”
“Not them, the whole neuronet! Did they find your old political guk? Sorry, I don’t mean it—“
I laughed. It was the only way I knew how to cope with the tension. “It was guk.”
“I’m sure you were inspiring.”
I shrugged. “I complained about things and people thought I knew what I was talking about.”
“Well, did you?”
“Yeah, but I vastly underestimated my country’s corruption.”
“Wow, sounding edgy now, huh?”
“Whatever. I was in the right mindset and lucked out with the algorithm.”
“I know you were probably doing your best.”
“I was, but I was young and thought I understood everything.”
“You’re still young.”
“But now I know I don’t know anything. Medislavia is a mess of an oligarchy, but it sounds like it’s nothing compared to the Gongtide.”
“Maybe it’s a part of it? It sounds like a lot of the world’s problems are connected to it.”
“Probably in some way or another.”
“Like Deleon being part of Cut’s plan?”
“Exactly.”
“Should we see what the news had to say?”
“I’m sure it’s guk but go for it.”
I took her hand and we jumped into our neurospaces, then initiated a neurolink. I gave her control as she navigated us on the net to something titled: Naoma’s back with a Former Medislavian Neuronet Extremist?
She laughed. I was glad she, too, was using humor to cope with the stress of what might me a most unhumorous situation. “Did they pull your title from the Medislavian net?”
“With Cut–excuse me, the late President Cuttrin–and Pavtov in bed with each other over Arabasia, I bet they’ve been mashing all of the media together.”
She selected start.
An aerial view focused on me and Naoma as we stood before the Donki Tower. I wondered whose drone had lucked out on that shot, earning them vile amounts of violet lumens for a lucrative shot of what they might have assumed was simple pop-up coverage.
Two women narrated the broadcast with the energy to match Ralia and Kyo.
“After–how long has it been, three months?”
“No, I think it’s been a year.”
“No chance! She topped the charts like what, six months ago with Let’s Eat!”
“Let’s Eat, has been at the top of the charts since she played it live, even prior to release.”
“What we mean to say is that it looks like the Neon Idol is back! Despite a few weeks–”
“Months–”
“Whatever it’s been since Naoma’s recent release, she hasn’t had the weekly releases to match competitors like 3Rochi, whose pop-up she visited today in Chuyen!”
“You know they’re not competitors, right?”
“Of course they are. They’re not the same person.”
“But they’re under the same record label.”
“Didn’t you hear about her departure from Reef Records?”
“That was a fabrication. There’s no way she killed the Anton Jackson.”
“Because she didn’t, you shac. He went off the grid after some mess in the Red.”
“No way that’s real.”
“Jump into your neurospace right now!”
“Jump in yours you neurolove wannabe–”
“Violet whore!”
Naoma paused the playback, dying of laughter. “What is this guk?”
It was kind of funny, but her laughter amped it up to be a complete comedy act. “What?”
“They—they–” Looking at my dumbfounded chuckle, she started to cry laughing.
“No way you’re laughing this much.”
“It’s–”She clenched her stomach. “–I–”
“Are you on some kind of fix?”
She nodded, laughing. I felt a sting of fear, almost a need to reprimand her, but what did it matter? We were in a mess of social drama, so what damage did it do to boost her up a little if it earned some laughter like this?
It wasn’t the real Naoma.
If she needed a fix to boost her joy, she had to be struggling. The thought of a fix had my mind reaching for a socitab, but I held back. I held back for her.
“Sorry,” she said as she caught herself. She still struggled to breath without a laugh but slowed with a few seconds of silence. “I’m good.”
“You sure?”
She nodded, still smiling. “I didn’t want to use one, but it’s a low level giggletab.”
I smiled. If she was going to use a fix, at least it was one safe with kids. She used laughter to cope more than I had expected. “It was pretty stupid though, wasn’t it?”
She nodded. “I must have found the wrong newscast.”
“I think you found the top sponsored coverage on the neuronet.”
“Classic influencers commenting without any professional knowledge.”
“At least we can see what the public thinks.”
“True.”
“You want to keep watching?”
“I’d rather be able to focus this time without laughing.”
“Pulse.” I selected one called: Neon Idol Returns to the Public Eye with a Medislavian Political Commentator.
“That one makes you sound professional.”
“I know. It almost makes me want to choose the other one.”
“Maybe after.”
“I plug.”
A single woman narrated the same footage.
“Naoma–the Neon Idol of Reef Records fame–was spotted at the base of Donki Tower in Chuyen today for the latest stop in 3Rochi’s pop-up tour. No clear motive was found, though sources speculate that she is trying to reunite with Reef through 3Rochi after the fallout with her previous producer.”
“Even the ‘professional’ sources can’t get the details right,“ Naoma noted.
“Mass confusion and speculation is a lot better than the truth. Not always, of course.”
“But in this situation, yeah, you’re right.”
”–unfortunately to lack footage from within Donki Tower.
While many speculated that the Neon Idol would return soon after her brief contract with Nichley studious, many speculated as to where her loyalties lay after working on an Arabasian exclusive mindshow–The Red Geisha–which has since ceased showing in theaters.
“Despite speculation and Naoma’s Arabasian appearance, contradicting evidence leans towards her being a Republic native.”
“Do you think there is evidence?“ she asked.
“Doubt it. I feel like you would have known before them.”
“Someone has to know, right?”
I couldn’t answer in confidence.
“–take our attention to her companion in this appearance. Otherwise unseen with her, sources have matched this individual’s identity to the once-prominent Anti-Pavtov Medislavian social influencer, Petya Nebokov.”
I knew the world had heard it after hearing Kyo, but it didn’t make hearing it myself any less unsettling.
“Since fleeing his country for political refuge, Nebokov has disappeared from all social networks. Many Medislavian forms suggested that he might have been apprehended by Pavtov-loyalists prior to his escape, but the clear face match contradicts any said sources, despite the change in his hair with a notable skunk stripe.”
“Zeg, I should have covered that up.”
She patted my thigh. “It’s fine, you weren’t watching out for yourself.”
“While this scene occurred just moments ago, theories are already circulating about Naoma’s turn for the political, noting Nebokov’s political stance against Pavtov, who is laboring with the Republic to extract resources from corrupt Arabasian moguls.”
She laughed. “They’re really twisting this one now, aren’t they?”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure there are arguments on the other side that praise you for helping Arabasia.”
“Making a brainwashing mindshow is hardly ‘helping.’”
I shrugged, hoping she felt it with her shoulder against mine, as our sight was blocked by the news.