Chinese Whispers

"The revolution was televised, and the people found it good"

Ren said that a couple days ago, and Aya was trying wrap her brain around it. She couldn't. She had no idea what he meant; to be quite honest (and she wouldn't admit this to anyone, least of all her brother Hiro or his best friend), she was still trying to understand why being pretty wasn't "it" anymore. I mean, yeah, being a bubble-head wasn't so cool, but it would be nice not to be an ugly.

Hiro and Ren were all about getting noticed now, kicking their face count up and stuff. The problem was, everyone was trying to get noticed, and the city was taking a pretty big hit. People had died, riots had broken out, it was crazy. People waking up after the mind rain didn't seem to know where to put their energy. Night seemed to be when people wanted to get noticed, although that didn't really make sense to Aya. Maybe it was a holdover from the pretties partying ways (not like partying really went away).

Aya was supposed to head home once it started getting dark; her parents and other crumblies were freaking out because of the troubles, but it hadn't been that bad lately. She really wanted to see what Ren had planned. He had claimed it would kick him into the tech-head hall of fame, but Ren was skeptical.

"Whoa, sorry!" Ren gasped unintentionally when she bumped into the chameleon-headed surge monkey.

"No worries, littlie," he lisped with what she thought was a smile; her reponse was probably exactly what he wanted.

The big eyes freaked her out a bit, but she had to admit it was good work. This, of course, made her skip over the fact he just sort of insulted her. The guy would definitely get noticed like that. She turned and watched him meet up with another couple proudly displaying their surges. Ren said the cliques were forming faster than anyone thought. A new hierarchy replacing the pretty and ugly dichotomy with a multitude of new groups, like the surge-monkeys and tech-heads.

Aya didn't always get what Ren was talking about.

Still, he was always cool to her, especially since the mind rain. She was pretty thankful for that, since he was always hanging around Hiro. It would be pretty bitter to deal with a dreg all the time.

"Aya-chan, you made it. You were cutting it close," Ren called out to her.

She looked around, an awful lot of people were mulling around the plaza right outside one of the big illuminated buildings. It suddenly clicked, that big get together was tonight, the one all the high face counts were going to.

"Seen Hiro?" Ren asked.

Aya shook her head.

"What's keeping him? The timers about to blow."

"Blow? As in blow up? Like a bomb? Are you still bubbly?"

Ren chuckled, "No, as in, you'll see. Totally not dangerous, but I still wouldn't want to get caught by the crumblies afterwards."

Ren glanced around, "With this many people, my counts going to get a big kick."

Suddenly, there was a loud crack, like the sky spitting open, then a crashing sound. A plume of smoke shot into the sky, and, looking over the heads of the people, she saw one of the new model hover trucks catapult 10 feet into the sky and then into the side of the building. People were running away and towards it all at the same time, emptying the plaza.

"Ren?" Aya said nervously.

"No, no," Ren was mouthing wordlessly.

A flash of light drew Aya's gaze to the illuminated building. The holo-lights that gave the illumination such a solid appearance started to coalesce into a solid form, the body of a huge Chinese dragon that shot out over the plaza and blew fire down upon everything. Then, it was gone, and the building was back to normal.

The few people that actually saw it gasped in amazement, one girl even threw herself to the ground, but it was so quick, and everyone else was looking at the wreck. Ren's plan failed utterly. Aya would be surprised if more than a dozen people saw it.

"Ren, that was totally kicking," Aya said trying to console. It was like he didn't even hear.

"Ren?" Aya questioned, plaintively.

"Aya-chan … tell Hiro, you know, I'll catch him later."

"Can't you do it again?"

"No way. The code wasn't actually that difficult, it's the hardware. I don't know if I could scrounge those bits again. It was designed to burn itself out so the crumblies wouldn't have a clue, but they'll definitely protect the system better. No other place has holo-lights strong enough, either."

"You got the vid, though, right?"

"Yeah, but that's doesn't show it off. Not enough to kick it up."

A commotion from the direction of the wreck drew their attention. Some surge-monkey was waving his extended arms about as the law started carting him off. People were watching, heckling, cheering, or ignoring. Suddenly, everyone started pointing. Even Aya could recognize someone with a face count that high! But, he took a look at the scene, and he and his entourage turned about and left. So much for the party, Aya thought.