(Episode V) Creatures of the Megaplex (!) (Act 1)

River was tired. It’s amazing how revealing it is when one closes their eyes and feel them ache from the inside of their eye lids, when before you only felt numbness.

She didn’t have to close her eyes, turn away from the rest for good measure. But like everything recently (she says recently, but more over her whole, natural born life), it’s a safeguard to punish how much of a creep she could be.

After rummaging the fused hospital storage room-horror house, they managed to find their belongings. Bags of their clothes, and surprisingly, stuff that their respective familial unit wanted to give them. It was refreshing and happy for about a whole minute until they all remembered the fact that they might not be okay, or realize that respectively the girls were okay. Kinda a funny aneurysm moment.

But regardless, they all finally got out of those gowns, also took out Maddie’s merch stash, and used that to replace whatever they didn’t have in their bags with it, creating a fused look of personal style and “MAN, I’M SO HYPED FOR SHIFT CON GUYS”.

River was done the quickest, which is why she’s in this scenario now. In her bag, there was nothing but shirt, jeans, other pair of shoes, back up glasses, and her spare-spare, 57% functional if you hold down the right side with tape, laptop. She could hear the others slightly bemoan that their things are wrinkly, balled up, which again wasn’t concerns River had.

This was all she needs, really. All she’s ever had, basically.

“River…?” a voice said, that voice. “Why are you facing away like that…?”

River knew that turning away, putting the crippling awkwardness upfront, was undermining what could’ve been something somehow uglier, shittier. She knew she had to be super careful, revealing that she’s also into the puss organically, or face the troubling contradiction of unity.

She saw it just minutes ago, with that flaming landfill that ended up being the Final Step announcement. Since the Transitionary Point, all of whatever was left of humanity signed the official “Hey. Don’t be a dick” doctrine—and since it was signed, virtually every social issue was put to rest and you will be blasted for being a petty mofo. But virtually.

It didn’t take watching multiple B-movie plots to get that differences divides the group, and the one person that stupidly puts their personal reality above the literal one that now has giant alien ghost wasps invading it, and attacks the black guy, because he’s an invader like them.

At least with those films, there’s hamfisted satire and “spot the wires giving out on the ghost alien wings” games. Everyone’s already tense and have little reason to stay together. They don’t need “closet hater” coming out.

It just occurred to River that she still had her eyes close and still turned around.

“… I’m the reverse Jackie?” River attempted humor.

She turned around, looking around at her clothed cohorts.

“Look, guys, it was both a one-time thing and I’m just comfortable with—I’ll just take the joke…” the tall girl had her long mane down, to her back. She was wearing those custom school jock jackets you only see in some Vancouver set, wearing a red top that showed off her toned stomach and with cameo cargo pants. Just to radiate, “High school can totally work out, guys!”

“Yeah yeah, hush you closet nudist,” Maddie wore a mix-match of what she has with what she wore from before. Shift shirt, but with her ripped up jeans (because of course she wears ripped up jeans), sneakers, and with a small leather jacket to top it all off (because again, of course she wears leather jackets).

“Go back to Grease, Maddie,” Jackie said half-jokingly, half-dismissively. Problem was that her voice made everything so dire and resolute. It’s pretty much the unofficial reason why franchise main characters never have any good comedy lines; a voice like that only serves her well when she’s telling people that they’re wrong or there’s a speech to recite.

“Wow,” Maddie tried to sound impressed, which was the point. “Imagine having a worse line than River over here, and the thing is that we understand her this time…”

Jackie sighed, shook her head, and elected to put her hands in her pockets.

“I’m actually surprised,” Aiko stretched out her white blouse, frilled in patterns, wearing the Shift-themed pants, shoes and her hair in a sideways ponytail. “I remember that I had blood on this once; but Okaasan really must’ve washed it out!”

“…One: I’m gonna guess that’s like mom or dad, and two: you just officially crossed into the ‘Crazy Motherfuckers I Learn Not to Talk to’ zone-“ Maddie said in disbelief.

“Eh,” Aiko simply responded. “If ya’ need something, you’ll say. I know the deal~”

River looked towards Jackie, still shaking her head due to the compound degeneracy. The tall girl looked towards what River lovingly feared. “You really didn’t have any extra clothes, Tracy…?”

River creaked over her head and it was true. Tracy just had nothing but the Shift merch on, just tossing away one of the left-over bags into the alley, trying to look comfortable in these clothes and trying to form words.

“Oh—uh,” even her flubbing sounded so right. She scratched the back of her ginger head, “The family didn’t come, I live on my own for a while, sooo…” She flopped her arms to her curvy sides.

Jackie raised her eyebrow, “Where they on their way or…?”

“H-hey, I’m 18 and I’ve been surprisingly cool on my own… It’s just a matter of trust, y’know? I just don’t wanna worry them!”

“They’re family, they’re supposed—” Jackie suddenly stopped herself. She bit on her lip briefly and then just nodded. “Your business. We’re only wasting daylight. But just now, if you wanna talk…”

“Jackson, we’re going to a Megaplex,” Maddie snided. “Talking there is if only the movie’s baller, not feelings or whatever.”

The tall girl just raised her hands in defeat. “Fair. Fair enough.” She then put them down and gestured forward. “Lead the way.”

“What—no ‘lead the way, Rafiki’-?” Maddie questioned, but started to do what she was told.

“I’M NOT TERRIBLE LIKE YOU!” Jackie followed after. The rest of the conversation was drowned out.

Even when she wasn’t looking at her anymore, Tracy was on River’s taxed mind. She was on her mind ever since she made the mistake of glancing at her, those few days back.

The bouncy, ginger hair, the amazing body, those doughy eyes and bitten-too-hard lips. All created this… Insanely pretty picture.

Too good, too great for her—when just being pretty was already beyond her league, beyond her worth.

She can’t make this weirder. It was already weird that someone as “her” as her expecting to long for relationships, but considering… The “connection” she and Tracy have… There’s just too much baggage. Way too much.

She was just tired. Tired of carrying everything. But she has to, at least until she has a good reason to break apart finally.

It might not be long now.

But it had to wait, because the walk was grueling. And not for her, River looked ahead as she trailed behind, it was clear everyone was getting tired. It was starting to get to an hour by this point.

Everyone sans Maddie, who was getting pure, distilled energy from ranting about the place she’s lived in for her whole life. River tuned back in.

“Future Plains…” Maddie shook her head. “Another crackpot Davenport idea. How it was supposed to go was; all these companies and corporations all line up to set up their experimental ideas for stores and shit, letting us be test monkeys for it and in exchange, we got to have top of the line and super popular shit before they become super popular!”

She gestured, to the left, then the right. There was nothing, but concrete walkways, paved over land that hasn’t been built upon in years. A true urban wasteland.

“The suits are too scared in making frozen yogurt stands—even the Electro Endeavor flavors that stain your tongue and makes it glow in the dark for a whole day. You got something in a blue moon, but even then, it runs outta stock and just sits there. We braved the boring ass trips BECAUSE there was stupid ass and crazy shit here all lined up. No one’s coming here to get some Wall-2-Wall mart.”

“Interesting,” Jackie honestly taking it in. “I get this feeling from Steppe Ave now.”

“Yeah, that’s the other thing,” Maddie added on. “Steppe Ave was basically like New York Plaza before that got condemned or whatever—‘This is basically the island in one spot’. It does the same thing, but only for all the nerdy tech shit. Bleeding edge or whatever. Then it turned into testrun for the Shift stuff, and since we only care about Shift shit now, Future Plains is dry as fuck.”

“So what makes this Megaplex different…?”

“This is from the city, actually. Kinda one of those things like… ‘When all of this is finally over, we’ll not only return to normal; but normal will be so much better!’ thing. This thing has mini brand stores in it and self-serving movie rooms.”

“Ooooh…” Tracy cooed. River had to pause for that, it was the first time she heard her genuinely happy…

Weird again. She chided herself for being weird again. She barely knew her, not matter what her brain was trying to justify…

Jackie laughed. “You should be a junior tour guide. You’re frank enough to keep it interesting and you know a lot about this place…”

“Yeah,” Maddie shrugged. “Now, doing a job is just a job and the buck is way more important, but people annoy me as a collective, so I never once thought about it. Rather work at my and Frank’s shithole laundry place…”

Jackie looked to her. “But you’re still serving people…”

“My people~”

“oh god, there’s more people like you-“ it dawned on Jackie.

“YUUUUUUUUUP” Maddie loudly declared. “I mean, I worked there when I was 14—I say work there, it was like a Summer or whatever—but those 20 dollars a week blew my fucking mind back then!”

“Ha,” Jackie laughed audibly. It didn’t surprised River that Jackie was one of those people that earnestly says “ha” out loud. Jackie continued after, “I know the feeling, that was the best way back then. Y’know, before the whole Code Credit switch thing…”

“Was your first job, like, putting the old buff gym instructors to shame or something?” Maddie riffed. “I had something better, but we’ve been walking for like 2 hours, I gotta really dig more than usual—”

“I don’t know if me saying that what you just described was what I did in high school unofficially would help your joke or not…”

“Jesus Christ—”

“But! My first job was just helping Mom organize stuff, so basically getting me the excellent head-start of getting used to the mind and ass-numbing office job.”

Maddie laughed uproariously, “Okay—okay, I revoke my previous ‘Jesus Christ’ to use it there—just fucking picturing you… Sitting there sorting papers is so fucking funny!”

Maddie rubbed her eye, then sighs in relief, “But hey, your Mom’s smart. Better do that shit early, Shift shit or no Shift shit, there’s still going to be pencils being pushed. Or like, fingers to screens or something—”

“Tousan used to take me to his job site from time to time,” Aiko piped up. “I ‘worked’ there too whenever I went. The fact that I forgot what I did and what he does goes to show how much that worked—”

“Oh my god, Aiko…” Jackie said in response.

It was refreshing, hearing it all, especially the digs. It always reassured River, that everyone had their job horror stories, that they understood the raw deal and can joke about it, shrug it all off with their strained shoulders.

But it still represented why she was so tired. How everyone is so tired.

Even without the Shifts, everything was broken, but still needed to run. It’s like that scene from Metropolis (or at least how it was described), the ever-running machine that had borderline slavery to be a necessity, so that the world can keep running.

River sighed to herself, when she recalled that image her mind burned into her.

She was the old, rusted, out of place gear along with the many, whose erosion was steadier than hers. She continued to be a gear, tried to be, even despite breaking apart by the second.

That was her, yeah. First time in her life that not only was she smart about something, but honest with herself.

But it wasn’t the time to go back Mindscapper (at least she thought it was funny), she was a burden enough to the crew.

They walked up to the massive Megaplex. Stretched out, elegant in design, as two massive and smooth rectangles smushed together would be like. The entrance, with shut off neon lights, glass, and textures in a dome shape, put the finishing touches to firmly confirm that; “We show the highest and best regarded art in service of our masses”.

Like they didn’t just show The Sandlot: New Game the week before.

“Well, here we are girls,” Maddie announced, as they walked up to the closed automatic doors. “So how we’re doing this, Jackson?”

“What do you mean?” Jackie asked.

“…How are we gonna break in?” Maddie clarified.

Jackie looked around, her blue eyes looking to everyone.

“…We can’t get in here any other way, you cop—” Maddie said. “—Like, I was hoping that you didn’t choke and was gonna tackle the door off or something!”

“Maybe there’s a way to open the doors with siVis…” Jackie pondered.

“Yeah—we have to rely on the supernatural voodoo shit versus just finding some trashcan and toss it into the doors,” Maddie put her thumb up, then let her arm fall to her side. “Yo, Aiko was it? Go find something and throw it at the glass—”

“See, now you wanna talk to me!” Aiko chirped.

River sighed, then stepped forward. “I think… Maaaaybe this place is a Shift Fallout location…? It’d be a long stretch but…”

River looked up and down, then stopped the black device that was planted on the door’s left side.

“Yup,” River said. She went to the door, reached up to the device and felt it up with her fingers. “You said it was a new-ish building, so… Guess they wanted to be sure…”

“So we can get in?” Jackie questioned. “How does this work, exactly?”

River’s fingers dug into the back of the device, clamping down to release the mechanism, unclamping and backing the hand away as the small pin-pad launched out, numbers, and symbols being laid out.

“There’s… I think universal codes, depending on the type of building it is—what it’s used for. Government, workplace… Entertainment venue…” River explained. “I think I remember the code used for Entertainment venue…”

She mumbled to herself, closing her eyes, hoping that she doesn’t screw up.

She opened them, and started to plug in the pound sign, numbers, dashes, numbers to finish it off. She hit enter and it was like hitting her own stomach, as if the impending crush didn’t already make it hurt.

But the doors popped open regardless, much to the shock of everyone, including herself.

“Yoooo!” Maddie shouted. “Nice work, Brooke! How’d ya do that?”

River had to gulp, create saliva in her dry mouth before answering.

“…I didn’t join in with the shitty jobs discussion because I’m sorta still in mine,” River answered. “Family’s in the packaging business. We have to go in and out of places quick, but my brother usually, y’know… Punches in the code. Never did it until now.”

River turned to see an impressed Jackie, smiling ear to ear. She then went over, pulled her into a one-armed hug, patting her shoulder.

“See? You know things. You can do so much,” Jackie said, rubbing her shoulder now. She let go, and slowly opened the doors wider.

Everyone else followed Jackie’s lead in going in, while River stood there while rubbing her shoulder. Jackie waited for River, because of course she would. River relented, and then went in herself.

The lobby shared the same design principal; the floors with exotic marble covered up with black, coarse mats. Stories were lined up on the sides to create this circular presentation. The ticket booth was in the dead center, surrounded by the gates that led into the theaters.

“Everything should be on low-power operation now… That means stuff can be activated, but we shouldn’t do everything at once. So that means we can turn on the snack machines, go into the other stores, turn on the A/C…and maaaaybe one media room.”

“Right!” Jackie said. “That’s good.”

Maddie jumped over the gate, and Aiko followed after. Jackie basically lifted up her leg and walked over, which left Tracy and River.

Tracy fumbled away with her fingers, and River tried not to fumble her everything.

They both looked at each other, then quickly looked away, before looking back again to talk:

“I’m too f—”

“I’m afraid of—”

Both proceeded to laugh, nervously.

“I can go first,” River quickly fumbled out. “If I fall and break it, you can get through easy. A-and if I get through good somehow, I can… Help. Y’know—if you want me to.”

“I would,” Tracy scrambled to clarify. “I would like the help, I mean...”

River tried to breathe, but between forgetting how to and air getting knocked out of her, it made it hard to walk up and scale over the gate. She took it slow, as slow as possible, and somehow got over it.

She shakenly extended an arm for Tracy, to help. The wonderful girl grabbed it, as she scaled the gate as well.

And as if on cue, River quickly retracted her arm before Tracy could thank her, “Noproblemit’snothing”

“…Um,” Tracy said. “Still. Thanks…”

She walked past her as River stewed in everything sucking and sucking her into the void. And it’s somehow worse given that her mind can make that void real if she let it.

Thankfully, Maddie’s mouth was louder than the building up steam in her ears.

“Hey Brooke,” she said. “Come here real quick!”

River slinked over to join the rest. Surprisingly, walking causes the air to hit one’s agitated, flushed skin. And the funniest thing about that was that it reminded the person over how much they’ve screwed up.

But she made to the rest. They were standing near this dry foundation, before the hallways spilt off into the various theatres.

“So,” Maddie began, crossed arms. “We just realized that we’ve never had a bath in like, three days or something. You think you can find something to flip this on-?”

River blinked. “We delivered boxes, we didn’t fix foundations or sinks.”

“Yeah, sure, but you’ve been in basements and stuff, right?”

“This isn’t my idea, by the way—" Jackie piped in.

River sighed, then nodded. “Good point. I’ll search for something…”

She took her time, walking down the hallway, trying to find the entrance to the basement, ultimately finding it.

It was rather easy to do in hindsight, since it was a bland, normal door.

She walked down the stairs, and her shoes squished against the wet floor. She looked down, and it had this sheen that… Didn’t look like water, condensation. She looked up, searched around as the sounds of her wet steps echoed about.

Ultimately, she found a familiar panel, opening it up to reveal the valves to release the various water pressures to respective places. She grabbed the water foundation valve and slowly turned it on. It was harder, pressure aside… Was because the valve itself was covered in slime.

River retracted her hand, now coated in the liquid. She formed a fist, creating a similar sound like the squishing on the floor.

…Okay, a lot of weird things are piling up. She thought it was best to go back and tell the others. She walked back up the stairs, closed the door while wiping down her hands on her thighs.

As soon as she walks back to the foundation, she was treated to the blur of Aiko diving into the running water—She hopes she was in her underwear at least.

The girl screamed that it’s cold, while laughing as the water roared. Jackie and Maddie were now arguing per usual, while still trying to strip themselves. Tracy looked on from afar, and then caught River, looking at her.

It was as if the world wanted to conspire against her, versus the usual uncaring stance. As she turned on her heels, she kinda wanted the latter right about now.