Carnifax's face reflects its conflict. He stammers. "No, that's okay. It should be fine." He puts the helmet back on and whips it off another bout of vomiting in progress. "Oh that is horribly foul!"
He looks mortified, but I just grin at him. "Why are you embarassed?"
"I'm Justicar Carnifax!" He replies looking out towards the Wall where a dark ribbon of clouds is growing. "Clone of Captain America! Superhero! People are always watching me. I must make sure to not bring shame to Captain America because I wear his face."
"'Carnifax' means 'executioner.'" I say, raising an eyebrow. "When did Captain America go Punisher?"
He actually blushes. "It's not a code name. It's my name. What I was called when I came out of the clone vats. I don't kill all the time. Just when necessary."
"I'm not judging." I say. "It was just incongruous. How do you date without Rogers' face being spread all over the tabloids?"
Carnifax's face reddens, his reply is a little defensive. "I get by. I get lots of girls. I'm not the only clone anyway. The media always seems to be able to tell us apart, unless there's a scandal. Then it's 'are you sure you didn't sleep with that drunken high school senior?'"
I move into the air, feeling more than a little sarcastic, but I manage to keep my tone somewhat neutral. "Come on. You need to get cleaned up and then you go back to being a paragon of fear and justice."
Carnifax automatically goes to put on his helmet and recoils comically , nose wrinkling at the fumes of his vomit. Instead he tucks it under an arm and says. "After you."
He follows me into the air. In about a minute we were landing on the roof, its lounge furniture empty.
The building recognizes me and the door opens and we tromp into the elevator and are soon on my floor and in my apartment.
"Damn." Carnifax mutters. "This place is odd. It's a literal corner apartment."
"The bathroom is in the far corner." I gesture. Carnifax nods and moves, his suit making subtle noises as the servos match his movement.
Thunder roils the sky, crackling and hissing.
"Son of a bitch." I growl, walking to the window and trying to peer up past the elevated railway. And then. I step back, remembering the sphere, and the strange changes in my perspective.
Remembering the event is enough. My perspective shifts outside and I'm watching the storm surge from the east, cloud bands racing over the city. It is moving amazingly fast.
"What the hell?" I exclaim. "Where did that storm come from?"
"It was the big news until the blackout and the riots." Carnifax says from the bathroom. "And then, the hurricane only really mattered to the poor people who live outside of the wall that keeps out the sea.
"What about outflow from the rivers because of rainfall?" I ask.
"Dr. Richards has done a very good job design wise." He yells. "Tony Stark's construction has been flawless so far."
"Oh." I say.
The first curtains of rain sheeted across the neighborhood.
"Hey, would you mind if I take a shower?" Carnifax asks from the bathroom.
"No, I don't mind at all." I say, still watching the unfolding storm. "Go ahead."
The sucking depression that had enveloped me this morning was gone, leaving me with a brittle melancholy that fractures under the wonder of being able to see the world free from eyes.
The inklings of joy punch through the fear, melancholy, and Immersion as I think about the day, and the future, and my choices. I have no idea how long this job will last. Everything here seems so real, so like an actual city. But, it's a setting for a program, some how ephemeral, but very real, all part of the show.
The money, the home, the backstory. I want to believe that I am real. "Real" being whatever keeps me sane, whatever keeps me going.
And then I remember that I still have something to lose if I screw up this job. I think about the few tales I was told about people who choose to live "outside." I wonder if some ofthem were pushed or even thrown "outside," wherever that is.
"They haven't started yet?" I hear someone thinking close by. "Why are we here so early?"
I turn, looking in the direction the thoughts came from. The room is empty. I squint, focusing, I see an afterimage of a person in a bulky outfit, but moving easily. He thinks there are more than one of them in here, but I cannot sense them. I can't see them either.
"Holy shit, he knows we're here!" The mental voice says. "What do you mean 'what do I mean?' He know's I'm here in the sidereal part of the set! Oh! I need to turn up the psi baffling on my cam suit."
The voice pauses and then comes back, calculating and urging. "Wait a second. Okay. So, I know you can hear me. Make it good and steamy, but make it nice and sweet, not too porny!" The presence fades.
I reach for Carnifax's quiet mind and inside I find him wrapped up in nerves, frozen, trembling, chanting to himself. "I can do this. I can do this."
"So... you know about the camera crew occupying sideral space?" I ask.
His thoughts spin. "You can see them too?"
"I can sense the thoughts of one of them." I reply. "Especially if I concentrate." I could actually see him, or it could have been a telepathy induced after image.
"Jesus... " He thinks. "They know you can sense them?"
"Yeah." I reply. "The joy of after-market mods."
His laughter comes out of the shower, unsteady. He keeps the thread of the mental conversation going. "I'm a Herald at least, I am after the Megafauna Spectacular. We are supposed to drive stories, and we are always supposed to have a romantic interest, one we can sometimes choose. Sometimes they are chosen for us, it depends on what the 'in' is supposed to be."
"Did you choose me?" I ask.
"Yeah." He says. "The Megafauna Spectacular's producers wanted me to kill you first. Said it would be a mercy. And then you demonstrated you could take care of yourself thank you very much. And then you turn up with Imagineering Consolidated. I asked for a chance before you left the ship."
"Why?" I ask.
"Because... because you are Lotus." He says. "And for whatever reason, the Audience AI's subdivide people who will put out on screen, with minimal obvious fuss, into Lotus."
I sigh and lean against the door of the bathroom. "I was told by your Continuity Police, who would not even meet me in person by the way, that I would bring down the narrative color of the program."
"I... I need a love interest." He says hesitantly. "I've watched your scenes and read your cast profile. I can do it. You are easiest."
"And then you find someone more respectable?" I ask, taking off of my clothes.
"Yes." I hear Producer West's thoughts, sibilant and faint. "Seduce the innocent, corn-fed, hero. Let us see the scheming in your eyes." And she is gone as quickly as her thoughts appeared.
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