Page 3 of Anti-Player

:

IT THINNED A TORTOISE!!!

??????????

??????

???????????? ??<3 <3 FAWN!!

IT THINNED AAAA

TORTOISE!!!

:

I know this is goingto become a running joke on my stream and, while that's good for engagement, I'm... moody. Let down, honestly. The device is a failure. Now I have to tell everyone that.

And I will, because they deserve to know.

Isn't that why they're watching me?

“Terrible,” I sigh, crumpling up the note, throwing it to the side. No one can see my tiny apartment outside of the video camera, so they don't know the paper ends up in the growing mess of my overflowing trash and clutter. “Never mind the fact it didn't work, who green-lit that awful awful voice? Even GPS's from ten years ago sounded nicer!”

Cookie is clapping, nodding along as I rant. The tips begin to flow. Encouraged by the response I continue speaking my truth. “Also, who is this thing for?” I ask. When I slap my desk, cartoon birds fly around my screen. “Who needs a paper-weight that can misread a single page of text? Huh? Oh, and by the way, want to know how much this thing is meant to retail at?”

“Tell us, tell us!” Cookie crows.

I flip the original box over, holding it so it blocks my screen and everyone can see the fine print. “Dun dun dun,” I rattle like an announcer, “Eight hundo freakin' dollars!”

That's the final straw; my chat loses it, and for a while I can do nothing because they're tipping so much, typing so much, my screen is a mess of colorful emotes and animations. I had built in some triggers for any donations over fifty dollars, so now there are 3D coins cluttering my screen and hiding my avatar entirely. It's so loud I turn my volume down to give my ears a break.

That's the only reason I hear the knock on my door.

I ignore it at first—I'm not expecting company. They knock again. Is it a delivery, or someone with the wrong address? Maybe a solicitor got into the building? The tapping keeps coming—hard, loud, insistent.

Frowning, I say, “Be right back guys, quick break.” I turn my camera off so the stream can't see me anymore. Instead they'll see a static image of Fawn that I'd drawn next to a be right back logo.

Rolling my computer chair away from my desk, I pop off my headset. I don't know who's at the door, but I don't want them seeing me in a skin-tight green body suit. Swiping a bathrobe from my bathroom, I quickly toss it on, belting it as I reach my door.

“I hear you, just a second!” I shout, twisting the handle.

I open my door.

Then I nearly slam it shut.

There's a man standing in my apartment hallway. Just a foot away, in fact. He's so tall his thick, dark hair nearly brushes the top of the frame. In spite of the fact he looks disheveled in a very Keanu Reeves relaxing on the beach kind of way, the rest of him is all business; stiffly ironed and well fitted black suit, black slacks, dark gray dress shoes with charcoal faded tips. Not the kind of guy that lives in my multi-floor roach infested apartment in the middle of Santa Monica.

“I'm sorry,” he says, his voice husky, like he's out of breath from jogging here.

I blink. “What?”

Straightening up, he fixes me with an intense stare. Jesus, his eyes are so blue. And in hindsight I want to blame my dumb hormones for making me sluggish, because any other time, I would have demanded to know who he was before he said it.

But he's hot. I'm dumb-horny. That's how it goes sometimes.

He holds out a long-fingered hand, and with a slight smile, he explains. “I'm sorry that you didn't like the Secret Reader. I'm Mikel Hause, the man who created it, and I want to change your mind.”

---