6. Rippa’s After Action Report
When Rippa returned home sometime in the afternoon, Mom and Dad sat her down at the kitchen table.
“We were hoping you’d at least text us,” Mom scolded.
“Sorry, sorry.”
“So, what did you guys do?” asked Dad.
Rippa recounted what she and Buttons did that day. First, they played on the water slide for a while. Then Buttons got tired, so they took a nap for maybe half an hour. Goggles then gave Rippa some iced tea, and after that, they played in the sand with toy trucks and buckets and shovels, which Rippa admitted was quite a tranquil experience. And then Madam J.D. made them wash their hands—
“Who’s Madam J.D.?” Mom and Dad asked.
“Oh, she’s like Buttons’ nanny. Here, let me show you,” Rippa took out her phone and showed them a selfie she had taken with Madam J.D. and Miss Pendrake.
Mom and Dad examined the photo. The wooden doll maid and the blond girl flanked Rippa and, with expressionless faces, made finger hearts. The top of Buttons’ head could also be seen at the bottom of the photo. Mom swiped left and right to check out more photos. There were a couple of selfies with Buttons. And one with Goggles. And one with the whole gang together, where Rippa had to really stretch her arm so everyone could get in the shot.
“OK, she does look different from the others,” Dad noted.
“I thought she was the nanny?” Mom pointed at Miss Pendrake.
“Oh, she’s the bodyguard. And…” Rippa paused for a dramatic effect, “and she can walk on water.”
Much to Rippa’s disappointment, Mom and Dad didn’t seem to be stunned. They were, in fact, relieved.
“So she’s not a human, huh?” said Dad.
“Definitely not,” Rippa agreed.
“Thank god, so she’s not someone Goggles invited before you,” Mom let out a sigh of relief. “OK, that’s one less worry.”
Rippa looked at her mom and then at her dad. “If you were worried, why didn’t you come? You also have the rings.”
“Well,” Dad shrugged defensively, “that kid wants you to be her friend. We don’t like to be third-wheeling.”
Rippa rolled her eyes. Before she could say anything, Mom urged her to go on with the report.
“What else did you guys do?”
“Right… OK, for lunch we had some goddamned good sandwiches, and then...” Rippa continued with her report.
After lunch, Buttons and Rippa played in the water for a bit, but Buttons got tired, so they took another half-hour nap. After that, they had some tea and biscuits, and then went back to playing in the sand—
“That’s a lot of napping,” Dad commented.
“Goggles changed the time zone, remember?” Mom reminded Dad.
“And then I came back. Gotta set up for tonight’s stream,” Rippa finished her report.
Mom and Dad exchanged looks.
Dad turned to Rippa. “OK, it sounds like… a whole lot of nothing?”
Mom nodded in agreement. “I mean, I was expecting a spectacle… what with them being aliens and all that.”
“She’s just a kid,” Rippa shrugged. “We just hung out. That’s all.”
“What about Goggles?” Dad asked.
“Oh, speaking of him. I’ve been thinking,” Mom interjected. “Perhaps he is the father?”
Her theory was that Goggles was the father who lost his daughter. He then, by some means, cloned his dead girl, and voila, Buttons. But he knew Buttons wasn’t the real deal, so he couldn’t bring himself to accept her as his daughter, but still felt responsible for the child’s existence, hence the butler cosplay?
“That sounds very anime,” Rippa pointed out, “but Mom, if that were true, then Goggles must be a human.”
“Yeah.” Dad sided with Rippa. “I mean, some rich scientist guy with secret clone technology… I think we could go with that, yes, but the whole holodeck stuff and the robot maids and teleportation… that’s way too future technology.”
“Hmm, you are right,” Mom conceded.
“But how about,” Dad thought aloud, “given that Rippa is now friends with an alien… how about if Goggles was an alien friend of the father?”
“Oh, oh! You are onto something, Dad,” Rippa urged him to go on.
“So Goggles’ human friend’s daughter died. Goggles made a clone for his friend. Things didn’t work out. Now he’s left with the kid, so he looks after her like some princess.”
“Ooh, now it all makes sense!” Mom clapped. Rippa agreed, too.
“Now, now, let’s not jump to conclusions.” Dad reeled them back in, “it’s just a theory, alright?” But he himself seemed to be satisfied with his version of Goggles.
***
After dinner, Rippa readied for the day’s stream. She had initially planned for a ‘just chatting’ stream, but decided she couldn’t trust herself not to talk about the aliens, the portal, the holodeck, and the whole adventure. She needed something to keep her busy and make her temporarily forget about Buttons and Goggles.
“Chat, I’m gonna try the dead game again,” Rippa announced. “Fuck you, I didn’t rage quit yesterday! Mod, ban that guy!”
But her chat kept teasing her. Enraged, Rippa challenged a viewer to a 1v1 sniper duel, which, after much desk slamming and throwing a healthy dose of insults, transitioned into a full-stack five-man party quickplay shenanigan, during which tons of meme-worthy clips were farmed, and Rippa herself and a couple of members of her party received a 14-day chat ban in the game.
“What did I do? Why am I silenced? This is unfair. No wonder the game is dying!”
‘Rippa, you typed GGEZ in the chat,’ a viewer reminded her.
“And that gets you banned these days? Chat, what has the world come to?”
After the stream, closing down OBS, Rippa took a sip of Cola. This was another good stream. She had fun playing with her chat. Opened some lootboxes and got nice stuff. Battle Pass progressed… then she froze.
‘Fuck, did Buttons watch the stream?’ Rippa wondered for a second. She had indeed screamed and said many, many vulgar things that a child should not be exposed to. But then she shook her head. ‘Heck, even mom and dad watch my stream, and they are OK.’
She looked at her screen. The webcam was still on and the VTuber software was tracking her facial expressions and movements. On the second monitor, her Discord was open and showed scrolling chats between her moderators in her server’s mod channel.
Rippa recalled Buttons’ face. She had not told this to her parents, but now what that kid had said was bothering her.
Earlier that day, when Rippa readied herself to return home, Buttons had come and said, “Thank you for coming to play with me today,” then the kid fidgeted a little before continuing. “I know it must have been bothersome. So… thank you even more.” The kid then fidgeted some more. “I know it sounds silly after all this, but… You don’t have to come back. You owe me nothing.”
Rippa frowned, recalling the conversation. She stared at the cursor on the screen.
Rippa fired up OBS again and loaded the setup for a react stream: her avatar in the bottom-right corner, an overlay of now-empty chat in the bottom-left, and a tab of a YouTube page in the center.
She wiggled left and right, and her 2D anime avatar did the same on screen.
‘Buttons would love to see how this works.’
And then she spent the next two hours fiddling with her VTuber model maker, but in the end decided letting Buttons do her own avatar would be a lot better. The kid could play with this shit for hours!